


Aqun-Athlok

by Eva Grimm (elusivetruth)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Aqun'Athlok, Canon Gay Character, Canon Trans Character, F/M, Fantasy, Graphic Description, Mental Anguish, POV First Person, Pansexual Character, Past Abuse, Romance, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans, Trans Female Character, Transgender, Transphobia, transgender character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-19 16:57:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 51,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3617331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elusivetruth/pseuds/Eva%20Grimm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of an internally ranty Dalish First and how she eventually comes to discover that it's okay to be true to oneself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Wrath of Heaven (AKA, Consciousness is Overrated)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hamasha, the internally ranty First of Clan Lavellan, is all but an outcast within her Clan because she's not like other female elves. Sent on a mission by her Clan's Keeper, she finds herself thrown headfirst into the world of Outsiders after an explosion at the Conclave. She’s more than a little confused by it all, which only reaffirms her belief that consciousness is overrated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Dragon Age: Inquisition or any other BioWare intellectual property. Aqun-Athlok is a fan-based work and not sold for profit.
> 
> ***WARNING: PAST ABUSE is heavily hinted at and at some points outright mentioned. Reader be advised.
> 
> ***SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for any Dragon Age game; they're going to happen. You’ve been warned.

**Aqun-Athlok  
** By: Eva Grimm  
 _Chapter One: The Wrath of Heaven (AKA, Consciousness is Overrated)_

“ _I'm going back to sleep.”_

* * *

Consciousness is overrated. At least, I certainly think so, though in all fairness, my opinion on the matter has been shaped by nearly a decade of bad memories spent amongst the clan into which I was placed when I was young. The only good memories I have where I'm awake are those that feature either myself alone or me together with my clan's Keeper, Deshanna Istimaethoriel Lavellan. She's got a bit of a long name, so I usually just call her “Keeper.” Can I be blamed for that?

I probably shouldn't be blamed for much of anything, really, but that has never stopped my clan. All of them, spare my Keeper, either hate my very existence and actively seek to make my every waking moment miserable or treat me and my never ceasing torment with indifference. Never mind that I'm their First. Actually, if anything, I think that spurs them on even _more_. The thought of me becoming Keeper someday probably terrifies them. Truthfully, it terrifies me too. Sometimes, on the rare occasions when I have a good dream, I find a way to break free from the path that’s been set out for me — the path to becoming Keeper of Clan Lavellan and thus obligated to ensure the well-being of the very people who haunt my nightmares and their descendants after them (Creators save me.).

The point I suppose I’m trying to make is that relations between the clan and myself… have always been antagonistic at best and violent at worst. Not from me to them though! Okay, that’s a lie. I _usually_ manage to keep myself in check, but as one might imagine, it becomes more difficult for me to do that around the seventh time Alerion or Mithra (They’re the worst of my tormentors.) has made me bleed within a single confrontation. It might make you wonder why I’ve never resorted to blood magic.

The answer is my Keeper. It would upset her if I turned to blood magic to solve my problems, and I’m not sure I could bear to see her disappointed in me after all she’s done to help me. She’s the one who listened to me when I told her about my problem (I have many problems, but they all stem from one problem: The Problem, you might say.), who showed me which herbs to use and how often to do so, who allows me to be... me. She even does her best to stop the rest of the clan from attacking me, thought that only ever stems the tide briefly.

Sometimes… sometimes, I fear that deep down she feels the same as them and just doesn't show it. After all, a _proper_ Keeper doesn’t hate the members of their clan. Halam’shivanas (“The sweet sacrifice of duty”). That feeling never lasts long, thankfully, since all it takes to make it go away is hearing her call me ‘Da'asha’ (“Little Girl”) once more. Normally, she calls everyone in the Clan ‘Da’len’ (“Little Child”), but I'm a... special case, so she makes a point to do it often, especially since she’s the only person who does (Except, of course, the people in my good dreams.).

“Da’asha,” I hear her say, calling me out of my reverie as she approaches.

“Yes, Keeper?” I reply, my light red eyes (They’re pink in the right light, I’m given to understand.) moving to meet her gaze as she finally comes to a stop next to me.

“Da’asha,” she repeats. This is often an omen, the precursor to bad news that invariably involves me, though I carefully control my reaction. “I have a very important task for you.”

My eyebrows rise to meet my hairline. I have been charged with many tasks throughout my time as First, but never in my memory have I been given a ‘very important’ task. “Whatever you ask.”

“The Shemlen have arranged a conclave between the mages and templars. You must go there and learn what you can, for I fear that what happens there will affect all elvenkind.”

“Ah,” I murmur, my hesitation evident in voice and expression, much as I wish it wasn’t. “May I ask why you're sending me? Wouldn’t one of the hunters be best? I have no training in stealth.” It's probably very obvious that I'm wary of this task, but I never was very eloquent with words.

“As I said, this is a conclave that involves mages. Some of your brethren acquired clothing typical of a mage from a Circle, and using it, you could hide in plain sight in a way no one in the tribe but me could.”

“Ah.” Okay, I can be repetitious too. I never said I was _faultless_ — just that I was often targeted because I’m different, which isn’t my fault. Though then again, I suppose in _their_ eyes… Ugh. I should stop while I’m ahead. “As you say, Keeper. Where will the conclave be held?”

She gestures at the nearby mountains — the Frostback Mountains, I believe the Shemlen call them. “At a temple in the mountains. If you join the masses traveling to it, then you will find it. You must leave soon, else I fear you will miss their meeting altogether. I have already placed the clothing with your belongings. Go as soon as you have donned them. Dareth shiral, Da’asha (“Safe journey, Little Girl”).”

“Ma nuvenin (“As you wish”),” I say before leaving, making my way to the spot I claimed as my own when the clan reached this location a few days prior. If I am lucky, Alerion and Mithra have not stolen my staff again. The sight of my staff greets me a minute later; it seems I am lucky. I then notice the clothes Keeper mentioned. _Perhaps I am not so lucky..._

“Fenedhis (“Wolf dick”).”

* * *

_How did I ever get into this mess?_ I think to myself as I glance around at my captors, doing my best to ignore the electrifying sensation of… whatever the mark on my hand is (Which, I might add, is hard to do when my skin is constantly flickering with green light, something it decidedly did not do prior to my reaching the Temple.).

Reaching the Conclave had been, as Keeper said, a relatively simple task. My unfamiliarity with the attire of circle mages might have made me stand out ordinarily, but the couple days’ travel in them prior to my encountering the Shemlen hordes traveling to the Temple had gotten me acquainted enough to pass as normal. The problem was… I don’t recall what happened after I reached the Temple. My next memory is being here in a cell, in shackles, on my knees, and surrounded by armed Shemlen with blades drawn and directed at me.

A thought occurs to me. _Am I so wrong that even the_ Shemlen _can tell?_ This understandably bothers me, but before I can continue to dwell on the matter, a door somewhere in front of me swings open with a mighty squeak, bathing the dark cell with radiant light.

I avert my light red eyes, the sunlight too brilliant for my presently darkness adjusted vision. The squeaky door (Are Shemlen so uneducated in the ways of the wild that they don’t know about the natural oils that would eliminate such awful noise?) clangs shut soon after, and as I chance a look in the direction of the once again sealed door, I notice two women have entered the cell. One is raven-haired while the other has hair of a color halfway between a carrot and blood, and both of them are clad in attire that sets them apart from the homogeneity of the attending guards. Somewhere in the cell, there’s a leak, _drip drip drip_ ing away (Seriously. How can the Shemlen be _this_ incompetent?). As they approach, the guards sheathe their blades, causing the sound of metal scraping against metal to fill the air.

“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now,” the black haired of the duo says, her voice sharp and demanding.

_Fenedhis!_ is my first thought. Very helpful, that.

“The Temple has been destroyed,” she continues, ignorant of my inner exasperation with myself, “and everyone who attended it is dead.” Her light brown eyes find mine and pierce straight through them, as if by doing so she could learn my innermost thoughts and secrets. “Except for _you_.”

_You think I did it_ , is my first thought, but years of experience in situations like this have taught me better than to voice that thought. The last thing I need to do is give them more reason to suspect me. Instead, I remain silent, carefully watching her and everyone else in the room as best I can, searching for even the slightest hint, the simplest observation that might help me escape.

“Explain this!” she demands when it becomes apparent I’m not going to answer, grabbing the hand bearing the strange mark I mentioned earlier.

_Honestly, I’d like an explanation for that too, Shem._ “I can’t. I have no idea what it is,” I answer with as much sincerity as I can muster, which was a lot in light of my truthful ignorance of what had happened to my left hand.

“A likely story,” she scoffs.

“Likely _and_ true, as it happens,” I reply, doing my best to not sound accusatory. Antagonizing the person who seemed to be in charge of the guards was not a good idea.

Regrettably, she still seems to get angrier, but her companion steps in, physically grabbing ahold of the woman questioning me. “Stop. We need her, Cassandra.”

_Cassandra,_ I repeat to myself, ensuring I properly associate the name with my captor’s face. _And did they say “her?” So they don’t know then?_

The red-haired woman returns her gaze to me, her blue eyes hard as they too pierced straight through me. “Do you remember what happened at the Temple?” she asks, her words short but clear.

Okay, so maybe I was lying earlier. I mean, I really don’t remember most of what happened, but I do have bits and pieces still in my head. I weigh my options then, and deciding it would be best to be cooperative, I provide what little I remember.

This seems to be enough however, if my avid listener’s sudden exclamation of, “A woman!” is anything to go by.

Cassandra sighs. “Go, Leliana. I will take her to the rift.”

_Leliana,_ I repeat to myself as Cassandra steps forward and unlocks my shackles while the woman I now know as Leliana opens the door, slips through, and leaves it ajar. My hands are still tied together, but I’ll take what I can get.

She leads me out after Leliana, and as I slip into the bright light of day, I wince and pinch my eyes shut. Any level of light can hurt when you’re thrust into it after spending… How long was I in that cell? Well, whatever. The point is, sudden light hurts darkness adjusted eyes. I slowly ease them open as they readjust to the new level of light, and unwittingly, they’re drawn skyward, where I see the scariest sight I have ever beheld. One must usually be trained in order to recognize the touch of the Beyond (Or the Fade, as the Shemlen call it.), but I’m certain that _no one_ could mistake the massive rift in the sky as anything other than a portal into the Beyond.

The mark upon my left hand chooses that moment to flare, hissing and spitting like a cornered cat as it brilliantly flickers. I dimly note that the rift in the sky is also flaring, but I’m a tad preoccupied with the _PAIN_ searing through me. A cry escapes my lips, which is uncommon given the pain tolerance I’ve built up from… Well, I’m sure you know by now. I think I’m… Yes, I’m being pulled to my feet by someone, which I’m not entirely sure is the best idea at the moment. My feet agree with me, if they’re wobbly unwillingness to support my weight is any indication. Strangely, someone (presumably the person who pulled me to my feet in the first place) begins to support me. What is going on here?

The next couple of minutes are a bit of a blur, my senses dulled or otherwise impaired by pain, light, and noise. The feeling of the last of my bonds — rope bindings around my wrists — being severed draws me back into the real world.

“We need to test the mark on your hand,” Cassandra explains when she notices my surprise.

“Test?”

“You heard Leliana before. We need you — your mark. It may be the only thing that can seal the Breach.”

The Breach? Oh right. There’s a huge rift to the Beyond in the sky. Yeah, that does need to be sealed, doesn’t it? I guess I’m more distracted than I thought. Being held captive by Shemlen for allegedly killing everyone at their Conclave can do that. “And if I help you, will I live through it?”

“We have no way of knowing.”

My reply escapes my lips before I can censor it. “Ah. Well isn’t _that_ reassuring.”

My captor smirks — _smirks_! — at that and begins to lead the way up the path. Huh. Usually my jokes earn me looks of disdain and silent promises of pain later. Maybe I should ditch the Clan in lieu of living with the Shemlen. I’m such a good First. Truly. But really, can you blame me? Living in constant fear of pain is irksome, and it’s not like a Dalish elf can just be claimed by some random Shem as a slave. Right? Yeah, I think that’s a tad hopeful on my part too.

The mark goes into a fit again, sending pain searing through me as I collapse to my knees and then face first onto the ground. Maybe the Creators are trying to tell me that being a Harellan (“Trickster, traitor to one's kin”) isn’t necessarily the best idea.

Again, I’m caught off guard by Cassandra helping me to my feet. Her light brown eyes find my surprised light red ones. “The pulses are getting quicker. We need to move swiftly.”

And we did move swiftly, at least until a bridge exploded beneath our feet, sending us slamming into the frozen earth (thankfully not far) below. The following confrontation with demons is harrowing, since I have never faced down a denizen of the Beyond before. The angry Cassandra approaching me at sword point afterwards is as well.

“Drop your weapon!”

_Well, it’s not really_ my _weapon,_ I think to myself. My staff was lost at some point in the midst of the gap in my memory. Regardless, I am _not_ stupid, and I know what this situation calls for.

“ _I’m sorry_!” I cry in dismay, dropping the staff without complaint and rapidly backing away from it, my hands pressed together in front of my chest in a pleading gesture and my eyes tightly clenched shut, awaiting the coming pain. “Please, I was only defending myself from the demon!”

Silence. Nothing happens for a long minute, then quite suddenly, I hear her sheathe her blade and sling her shield over her shoulder. The snow covered ground crunches as she slowly approaches me.

_Here it comes._ I brace myself.

She stops within arm’s reach, or so my ears tell me. My eyes are still tightly, _tightly_ clenched shut. The color of my eyes always bothered the rest of the clan, especially Alerion and Mithra. Well actually, everything about me bothered them, but my eyes were the feature they taunted the most.

“No. It is _I_ who is sorry,” I hear her say.

My eyes pop open in shock. Something must be wrong with my ears. “W-w-what?”

Her light brown eyes had already softened somewhat from their earlier hardness, but now they somehow soften even more. “I did not mean to…” She trails off for a moment then tries again. “Ideally, you shouldn’t need a weapon, but I must face the truth: I cannot protect someone who is unarmed.”

“Ah,” my voice says. I didn’t really mean to say it, but I am… surprised. No one in the Clan besides Keeper has ever been comfortable with my having a staff, so hearing a Shem apologize for trying to disarm me is shocking to say the least.

Cassandra bends at her knees, leans over, and scoops up the staff before she rises to her feet. She holds it out to me ( _To me_!). I numbly accept it with my lightly shaking hands.

A silence falls over us again as we continue on our way. We encounter yet more demons, and I follow her shouted instructions during the battles as carefully as I can. It’s very obvious from the way she fights that she is a seasoned warrior, and I find myself wondering how exactly she thought she couldn’t protect me if I was unarmed. Yes, that one demon had escape her notice earlier, but we had just had a bridge crumble beneath us, so I imagine she was flustered. Every other enemy has stayed focused on her without exception; she commands the battlefield. Sure, my fire and lightning is helping kill the demons a tad quicker, but her sword and shield are like their own kind of magic.

Eventually, we come upon what appears to me to be a smaller rift that is spitting out demons that a small band of people is trying desperately to contain. What catches my eye though isn’t the handful of soldiers clad in armor akin to the guards from my cell but rather a dwarf with a crossbow firing bolts at a speed that simply shouldn’t be possible and a city elf deftly casting spells I’ve never seen before. Cassandra throws herself into the fray without hesitation, so I follow suit. The more helpful I make myself, the less likely they are to decide I should be in shackles again or to notice that I’m not like other elves. Or so I hope.

After a solid minute of slaying demons, the tide seems to abate, and the city elf abruptly grabs my left hand. I instinctively flinch away and begin to retreat into my mind for the coming pain, but I notice something odd: A beam of magic is shooting out of my left hand, and _I’m not telling it to do that_ . Years of ingrained instinct screams at me to reign in my magic. An out of control mage risks becoming thrall to a demon, a threat to their Clan. I _must_ stop this! But nothing I do is stymieing the tide of the beam, however; it’s like my left arm is no longer my own. I realize then that this magic doesn’t belong to me but rather the out of control mark on my hand.

My struggle seemed to last for a long time, but when the rift finally burst into nothingness and the beam evaporated, I knew it had been, in truth, mere seconds. My control over my left arm finally returns, and I snatch it away from the strange elf like I’d been burned. I fall to the ground in my haste, but I still push myself away from him, turning to lay on my side as I cradle my hand to my chest and gaze at him with wide, fearful eyes. He’s clearly caught off guard by my behavior, but I can’t help it. Others touching me, _especially_ elves, always leads to pain. Except for Keeper, but she’s not here (I desperately wish she was.).

“My apologies,” he says, his calculating, pale blue eyes watching me carefully. “I did not mean to harm you — only to close the rift.”

My panicked eyes flick over to where the rift had previously been hanging in the air. True enough, it was gone. “Ah,” I manage to say before falling silent once more.

Cassandra and the strange elf share a look, speaking through only their eyes, while the dwarf begins to chuckle. “Ha, aren’t you a panicky one?” he says as he slings the crossbow over his shoulder and onto his back.

“S-sorry,” I mutter as I slowly push myself into a sitting position, my eyes darting between the three of them and the soldiers watching me with undisguised interest.

“Well!” the dwarf continues, apparently immune to the awkwardness pervading the situation. “I suppose introductions are in order. My name is Varric.” He presses his hand to his hairy chest, which is plainly visible because his dark red, golden trimmed shirt has a deep V-cut neckline and his gray jacket is unbuckled and wide open. “And this,” he continues, patting the butt of his crossbow, “is Bianca.”

“You named your crossbow Bianca?” I ask in confusion, the strange name catching me so off guard that I can’t help but reply.

He laughs, a pleasant sound with his baritone timbre. It occurs to me that he was probably trying to diffuse the previous tension, but I can’t bring myself to care because I _do_ feel a bit better now.

“Varric and Bianca,” I repeat to myself before my self-preservation instinct kicks in, causing me to quickly rise to my feet, clasp my staff in front of me between my hands, and give him a bow, proclaiming, “I am pleased to meet you, Varric, Bianca.”

He laughs again. “No need to be so formal! So what’s your name then, my skittish elf friend?”

I blink in confusion. “Friend?” I have never had a friend among my own kind, much less one of the Durgen’len (“Children of the Stone”). The notion is so foreign that I find myself unable to reply.

“Well, sure!” he replies as Cassandra and the elf share yet another look. “You just sealed the rift, which means we won’t be ass deep in demons forever. As far as I’m concerned, that means you’re all right.”

“Ah.” I’ve never said that word so much in one day before. Then again, I’ve never been surprised so many times in one day. Living amongst the same Clan for most of your life lends itself to a repetitious existence. I’m beginning to fear that I will say nothing but ‘ah’ over and over again if I continue to spend time with these outsiders. In an effort to not sound quite so mindless, I resolve to say something — anything — besides ‘ah.’ That’s when I remember that Varric asked for my name. “My name is Hamasha,” I volunteer, “First of Clan Lavellan.”

The strange elf who grabbed me before takes the opportunity to insert himself into the conversation. “And I am Solas,” he says, “if there are to be introductions. I’m pleased to see you still live.”

“He means,” Varric adds, “‘I kept that mark from killing you while you slept.’”

_That_ catches me off guard again, but I control the urge to say ‘ah’ in response, instead managing, “Then… I owe you my thanks.” Oh good. My self-preservation instinct seems to still work when I’m surprised. That’s good for staying alive, that is. “Ma serannas (“My thanks”).” Oh. Well, maybe not. Why did I go and speak to him in Elven? He’s clearly a city elf. I’ve probably gone and insulted him, or made him think I’m challenging him, or, or… _Ugh_.

“Hamin,” he urges, noticing the panic that had begun to overcome me once again. “I take no offense, Hamasha.”

“Ah.” And I was doing so well too! Oh well. “Ir abelas (“I'm sorry”). I had not expected you to speak our tongue.” The thought strikes me then that he said his name was Solas. “Though I should have realized that from your name. ‘Solas’ isn’t likely to be the name of a city elf.”

He smiles enigmatically at that but says nothing in return, instead moving his attention to Cassandra, who seems to be growing impatient. See? Yet more proof that I need to work on my self-preservation skills. “Your prisoner is a mage,” he says to her, “but I find it difficult to imagine that any mage could have created the Breach. More likely, whatever opened the Breach is what created the mark.”

“Understood,” she replies begrudgingly. She glances at me, and I resist the urge to flinch away. Creators, she can be scary! “Yet it seems your theory about the mark being able to close rifts was correct, meaning it could also potentially close the Breach itself. We must hurry on to the forward camp.”

And so we begin to trek once more. Needless to say at this point, we encounter more demons along the way and even another rift. This time, Solas wisely elects to _not_ touch me, which is good because it’s a miracle that I haven’t collapsed from the stress I’m already feeling — no more, thanks. It turns out, he needn’t have urged me to close it anyway, since the mark seems to have a mind of its own. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. I certainly feel the attraction between it and the rift, but until I _elected_ to thrust my palm at it and forge the beam between them, it was an entirely controllable urge. Which is good because I’m not a fan of uncontrollable magic. I don’t fancy becoming a demon thrall, after all.

The threat of the rift safely past, we enter the gate of the forward camp and soon find Leliana arguing with a man in peculiar robes. As he, Leliana, and Cassandra argue over what’s to be done, I stay silent and pray to the Creators that I’ll live through this day. Incidentally, it seems the robes indicate this man is from the Chantry, or so I'm gathering from their conversation. Again, I’m not going to ask. Silence is the key to avoiding pain, so silent I am.

As it turns out though, the Creators must not be listening, since the three Shemlen are now all looking at me. Having tuned out a half minute prior, I have no idea why they’re doing that. So I say that: “I may have missed something. Why are you looking at me like that?”

Leliana doesn’t miss a beat, which makes sense. She doesn’t seem like someone who’s easy to catch off guard. Though maybe that’s just because she wears a shroud? I’ve only ever seen one Shem wearing one, and he was rather unflappable. Then again, that’s probably not the best assumption, given how few Shemlen I've seen wearing them.

“—ich way do you think is best?” she finishes, making me realize I foolishly got lost in my thoughts while she spoke. Perhaps my self-preservation skills require a certain amount of time to recharge before being used again? That would explain some things.

“Ah,” I begin, already cursing myself internally. “Whichever way you think is best.” I have no idea what I’ve just agreed to, but at least I'm not suffering a second embarrassing moment right after the first one. I’ll stick to looking like an idiot once per conversation where possible, thank you.

It turns out that what Leliana thinks is best is the path through the mountains, and perhaps most importantly, it's the path Cassandra does _not_ wish to take. Blessedly, she appears more focused on leading the way up the ladders leading to the cave above us than on sending hateful glares in my direction. Still, I stick to the back of our party of four, hoping to avoid her notice until she’s calm again. Varric seems to be keenly aware of this, if his grin is any indication, but he takes mercy on me and says nothing. I'm truly beginning to like this dwarf.

In the cave, we come across more demons (Surprise!) and yet another rift (Surprise again!). The Shemlen soldiers we save voice their gratitude to me, which is odd because, as I stated earlier, I am not even half the fighter of any one of my three companions. To put that in perspective, I am essentially the equivalent of one person in a group of seven, and they are each two people in that group of seven; such is the gap in our contributions. If there were no other mage to compare me against, then I suppose I could have understood, but with Solas burning, electrifying, freezing, and whatever-elsing (Seriously, he casts magic that creates strange, temporary rifts. How is he doing that?) every demon in sight, one would think that it would be obvious how inadequate I am. Nevertheless, I am the sole person around with a strange mark that shoots beams of magic that make demon-spitting rifts explode, and that seems to be the only thing that anyone cares about. I really shouldn’t be ungrateful. It’s definitely true that the mark is important, and consequentially, I am as well. This is good because being useful means they’ll be less inclined to hurt me later. Really, I should be encouraging their thoughts that I’m important, but I’m much too shy to do that (I talk a speak with myself a great deal, but not as much aloud, as should be obvious by now.), so I’ll have to make do with the Shemlen singing my praise (Something I doubt I’ll ever grow used to.).

Soon enough, we reach it: The Temple of Sacred Ashes. Objectively, I know that I’ve been here before — this is where they captured me, after all — yet it still feels strange and unfamiliar. That may have something to do with its current status as a smoldering ruin with red lyrium growing out of the walls. Varric is currently discussing this strange phenomenon with Cassandra, but at this point, it just feels fitting. Nothing that has happened to me all day has made any sort of logical sense, so why should strange, unnatural lyrium be surprising? Honestly, it’s a bit of a letdown if anything. Massive portals to the Beyond in the sky? Definitely stranger than red lyrium. A magical mark on my left hand that makes rifts to the Beyond explode like a vastly overfilled waterskin? Definitely stranger than red lyrium. Outsiders who apologize for frightening me, who ask my opinion about what path to take, who thank me for doing all the work that my three vastly more battle experienced companions do most of? Well, maybe that isn’t _definitely_ stranger than red lyrium, but it’s up there.

Setting aside my inner musings in the fear that I'll miss something important again, I hop down the ledge after Cassandra, Solas, and Varric and carefully listen for instructions.

“Okay, Hamasha,” Solas directs. “This rift here is the first and therefore likely the key to closing the Breach. It has been sealed improperly, so you need to open it. That will draw the attention of demons on the other side, but once we have dealt with them, you should be able to close it properly.”

“Ah.” I give up. “That’s a big rift… Won’t that be dangerous?”

“More dangerous than the ever growing Breach in the sky?” he counters.

_Good point._ Bracing for the coming attack, I point my left palm at the breach and concentrate on opening the rift. That’s not to say that I know what I’m doing because I assure you I certainly do _not_ . Rather, that’s the only thing I _can_ do, in light of the circumstances. Fortunately (Or unfortunately; take your pick.) for everyone involved, it seems that is the correct process for opening a rift to the Beyond. Either that or the enormous pride demon now before us just forced open the rift all by itself. Actually, that does seems plausible. It’s a very _big_ pride demon, you see. I think I may have mentioned that. My own, diminutive size probably contributes to that perception, but I imagine that even the tallest of Qunari would agree that, yes, this Pride demon was particularly large.

Oh, it’s stomping towards me. That’s bad. I dash away, casting a barrier upon myself and Varric, who is running alongside me. I mentioned this earlier, but I'm beginning to grow fond of this dwarf. Luckily for us, the two shortest of our quartet, the demon turns its attention to Cassandra as she does what she seems to do best — command the attention of everyone and everything in the area by being absolutely terrifying. I’m likely not doing her justice with my inept description of her, so I will simply add that you do _not_ want Cassandra to be angry at you. It’s bad for your health.

Incidentally, it seems to be bad for the pride demon as well, though not nearly on the same scale as it would be for me. Oh, and Varric and Solas are also handily contributing to dealing the demon pain. Solas in particular, which seems fitting to me as his name means ‘pride.’ To be fair, I imagine a one on one fight between the pride demon and Solas would probably result in both Solas and his pride being wounded (Ha! Wounded Solas, wounded pride. That’s a good one; I should remember it.), but he's doing quite well with his strange spells (I make a mental note to myself to get around to inquiring about that before I drive myself crazy).

And once again my habit of getting caught up in my own thoughts comes back to bite me as the pride demon's sweeping hand smashes into me, sending me flying away. Luckily for me, my barrier absorbs the worst of the blow, but I'm confident I will feel this acutely in the morning. Actually, it seems that this is becoming a very lucky turn of events, as Cassandra is currently taking advantage of the demon's distraction. I watch in wonder as she jumps with incredible force onto the demon's arm, pushes off from there into yet another jump, and plants her sword straight through its eye and into its brain. Incredible! That's like... wow!

Oh. It seems that all good luck comes at a cost of corresponding bad luck. Namely, the now brain dead pride demon is collapsing straight in my direction, which is very bad in light of the size difference between us that I mentioned earlier. I hastily scramble across the ground as best as I can (I am still on the ground, the unwitting victim to being awestruck by Cassandra's earlier acrobatics.), but of course, I'm only able to get half out of the way, my legs still in the line of fire (crushing, whatever). Maybe it will evaporate quicker than the rest of the demons? Yeah, that seems a bit too hopeful.

A split second before my bottom half gets crushed, I feel a magic barrier encompass me — doubtlessly Solas' doing, Creators bless him — which somehow holds against the pride demon's weight. Barely cognizant of what I'm doing, I twist my upper half in the direction of the still open rift to the Beyond, and I thrust my left palm at it.

As the rift explodes, sending a flash of green light shooting upwards into the Breach, I fortify Solas' mighty barrier with my own, much more modest version then decide that I'm done being conscious today, thank you, and promptly black out.

* * *

The first thing I notice as I wake up is that I no longer seem to have a dead pride demon corpse laying atop my legs, which is good because the second thing I notice is that there's no barrier protecting me anymore. Not content to only notice two things (Once you get started, it's hard to stop, you know.), my light red eyes blearily open and take in my surroundings.

Huh. It seems I'm in a... What do Shemlen call these things... A hut? A cabin? Something like that, anyway. Regardless, that explains why the ground feels extremely soft; namely, it isn't the ground but rather a Shem's bed. Incidentally, these are much more comfortable than I would have suspected, but I'm still fairly certain they aren't nearly as portable as the mats my clan uses. Ah well; give and take.

As I push myself up from beneath the covers so that my back is against the backboard, I hear the door to the... the _whatever Shemlen call this kind of building is_ open. I immediately turn to check who's entering, and I lock eyes with a city elf at the precise moment that she notices I'm awake.

“Ah!” she cries, dripping the box she was holding and backing away, her arms unconsciously rising up defensively. “I'm sorry! I didn' mean ta wake ya,” she hastily apologizes in an accent I can't quite place. Is that what I look and sound like when I do that? Because she's making me want to reassure her, and I've never been able to get my Clan to do reassure _me_. Maybe I just do it wrong.

“It's okay,” I shyly reply, “but, ah, could you tell me where I am? And how I got here?”

Rather than answer my sensible questions — at least, _I_ certainly think they're sensible — she collapses to her knees and begins to bow to me, muttering, “Forgive me, Your Worship. I'm not worthy.”

I am rather nonplussed at the moment. Is this elf confusing me with someone else? She must be, since I'm not anybody's 'worship' that I'm aware of. I open my mouth to explain this to her, hoping to bring our conversation back into the realm of normalcy, but she's already scrambling to her feet, saying in that implacable accent, “Seeker Cassandra needs ta know you're awake. 'Righ' away,' she said!” as she scrambles out the door before slamming it shut in her haste.

Now at this point, I think the sensible thing to do would be to get up and follow the strange elf, since she's apparently about to sic Cassandra (Who is apparently a 'Seeker,' whatever that is.) on me. Unfortunately, there are two problems with this: First, this Shem bed is mightily comfortable and practically begging me to go back to sleep. Second, I've just realized that someone changed my clothes at some point while I was unconscious. The later of the two is especially troubling, since people may have seen something, and that just makes the first all the more tempting.

Have I mentioned that consciousness is overrated? I'm going back to sleep.

 


	2. The Threat Still Remains (AKA, How I Get Dragged into Fighting a High Dragon Because Outsiders Are Too Stubborn to Move Their Settlements)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hamasha makes a friend and awkwardly stumbles through both a series of ridiculous tasks to help Outsiders who won’t move their settlements and also meeting a host of new people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Dragon Age: Inquisition or any other BioWare intellectual property. Aqun-Athlok is a fan-based work and not sold for profit.
> 
> ***WARNING: Past abuse is heavily hinted at and at some points outright mentioned. Reader be advised.
> 
> ***SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for any Dragon Age game — they're probably going to happen. You’ve been warned.

_Now at this point, I think the sensible thing to do would be to get up and follow the strange elf, since she's apparently about to sic Cassandra (Who is apparently a 'Seeker,' whatever that is.) on me. Unfortunately, there are two problems with this: First, this Shem bed is mightily comfortable and practically begging me to go back to sleep. Second, I've just realized that someone changed my clothes at some point while I was unconscious. The later of the two is especially troubling, since people may have seen something, and that just makes the first all the more tempting._

_Have I mentioned that consciousness is overrated? I'm going back to sleep._

* * *

**Aqun-Athlok**  
By: Eva Grimm  
 _Chapter Two: The Threat Still Remains (AKA, How I Get Dragged into Fighting a High Dragon Because Outsiders Are Too Stubborn to Move Their Settlements)_

_“Well hello there. Fall here often?”_

_“I try not to?”_

* * *

“Hamaaaaashaaaaa,” someone says, drawing out the vowels in a teasing manner, barely restraining the urge to laugh.

“Keeper... Ame souveri. Enan era nadas? (“I'm tired. Must I wake up/Must I emerge from dreams?”)” I sleepily reply. Only Keeper ever refers to me by my chosen name, so obviously it's her. Also, Mithra would've cut me by now (She's very true to her name's meaning, you see; “she who is sharp as a cutting edge” indeed.), and, if anything, I'm noticing a discernible _lack_ of pain at present. I really would have suspected that blow from the pride demon would hurt more...

This thought, together with the now very _unrestrained_ baritone laughter of someone in the area causes my eyes to snap open. Right. I am not, in fact, sleeping on my mat at whatever campsite my Clan has chosen for the time being but rather sleeping in a Shem's bed in a... Fenedhis (“Wolf dick.”). In a _whatever they call these types of wooden structures_.

“I can leave the room if you need your modesty,” the nearby voice says. I struggle to place the sound of it for a second before I remember it's the dwarf Varric.

His statement abruptly catches up with me. “Yes!” I manage to say in an unfortunately rather undignified squeak. This is odd, I should mention, since the timbre of my voice is not very high. I'm quite proud of how high I've managed to raise my natural timbre (A solid mezzo soprano, as it so happens.), but let it never be said that it is high. “My modesty. Yes. You should leave the...” I trail off for a second before I continue in a much more puzzled tone, “What exactly do outsiders call this structure? A 'room,' you said? I was _certain_ Shemlen call it a 'cabin,' 'hut,' or... or _something_ like that.” I'm terribly flustered at this point. I'm usually much better with my vocabulary, and I absolutely have to avoid insulting the Outsiders. I don't want to be in chains again.

On that note, I think I'm beginning to want to _stay_ with the Shemlen, Solas, and Varric, the dwarf I am beginning to like. Yes, they put me on edge a lot (Being taken prisoner does that to me, it seems.), and yes I've been in more dangerous situations in one day with them than I have in the rest of my life, but... but none of them have purposefully harmed me.

 _Yet,_ a traitorous part of my mind points out.

 _Harellan_ (“traitor”) _,_ I inadequately counter.

At this moment, in the midst of a ridiculous internal argument with myself, I feel something poke me solidly in my stomach. My reaction is predictable, I fear.

I instantly and instinctively flinch away with such ferocity that I slam my back into the wall of the structure Varric called a 'room.' Honestly, I was _so_ certain that...

“You do that a lot, don't you?” Varric says, interrupting my rambling thoughts. If I'm not mistaken — and I think it's relatively safe to assume this, since the beardless dwarf (Gracious, it's only just now hit me that he has no beard. Don't they all have one? I swear that's what Keeper told me...) seems to actually like me or at least find me funny — he used a tone of fond exasperation. “-keep doing that, kid.”

I blink. “Ah. I... Ah...” Off to a good start, Hamasha. Suuuuuch a good start. “Would you please repeat that, Varric?”

He rolls his honey brown eyes, a smirk playing across his beardless face (I fear I'm not going to get over this, now that I've taken notice.). Yet more evidence that, yes, he finds my quirkiness funny. I find this distinctly pleasing. “I said, 'You're going to miss what people are saying, so you really shouldn't keep doing that, kid.' You've proven my point, by the way.”

My lips unconsciously curl into a small smile at that. “It would seem that I did. I'm terribly sorry for getting lost in my thoughts again.”

He waves off my concern, replying, “I don't mind. _They_ might, but _I_ find it funny.” Oh good. I was right. “But seriously: Do you need me to leave?”

It takes me a second to remember what he's talking about. “Ah.” I glance down at myself, doing my best to ignore the fact that he's chuckling at me. Apparently the fact that I'm beginning to say 'ah' a lot is apparent to more than just me. I take inventory of what I'm wearing (also checking beneath the sheet of cloth covering me) and, deciding that I seem to be wearing fresh clothing (which is still immensely troubling to me), I say, “That will not be necessary,” as I carefully slide out from beneath the sheet of cloth.

“Well so you know, Cassandra has been _eagerly_ waiting for you to wake up again. She didn't seem thrilled when you fell asleep again last time.”

“Fenedhis,” I mutter before I can censor myself.

“I'm not familiar with that one,” he laughingly comments, “but given the context, I can imagine. I just thought you might appreciate an early warning from a friend.”

I smile. This isn't a facial expression I'm used to, but I'm finding I enjoy it very much. Very very much. Friends seem disinclined to harming me, which is pretty amazing. “Thank you... friend.”

“No problem, kid. Though there's one more thing I forgot to mention: The people here are _big_ fans of you now.”

“Big... fans?” I'm going to hazard a guess that he means something other than the tool one uses for cooling oneself. Otherwise, what he just said makes absolutely no sense, and Varric seems like the type of person who always makes sense in one way or another. I’m not entirely sure where I’m getting that impression from, but whatever. I have it anyway.

“They're...” He trails off, searching for an appropriate explanation. “Everyone really likes you now. They're treating you like you're holy.”

Well doesn’t that sound ominous? “Why?” I ask in utter confusion. Sure, some of the Shemlen I encountered together with Cassandra, Solas, and Varric seemed to like me, but... holy? That's bizarre. I start moving towards the door, pausing along the way to grab the staff I found yesterday. It’s not a bad staff, really, but at the same time, it makes me feel sad. This isn’t because my old staff was one I’d had for ages or anything quite like that, since, in fact, my old staff had only been finished not a month prior to my leaving the clan for the Conclave. My staffs have a tendency to suddenly… disappear, or break, or have new carvings that ruin the flow of the magic, or a cracked crystal, and other similar misfortunes. Point is, this new staff makes me feel sad because it isn’t one I crafted with Keeper’s supervision.

“Kid, you probably don’t want to go out the front door.”

Outsiders are so strange. I’m growing more and more certain of this with every passing moment I spend in their presence. I turn to face him, confusion evident on my face. Oh, I’ve just realized that I haven’t mentioned something important. I ought to rectify that. If you’re not familiar with Dalish custom, we engage in a coming-of-age ritual where we gain our vallaslin (“Blood Writing”), which Outsiders refer to as tattoos. It’s a really spiritual experience, since each of our individual markings reflects our patronage to one of the Creators. I’m old enough to undergo the process (I’m Asan’uan (“Nineteen”). I may have forgotten to mention that as well. I’m doing a poor job of this, aren’t I?), but Keeper hasn’t approved me for it yet. The pain wouldn’t be a problem for me, but apparently I’m not ready, I need to meditate more on the Creators and the Dalish way, and so on and what not. Incidentally, she might have a point. If I was a proper, good Dalish elf, then I wouldn’t be growing fonder of the Outsiders than my own Clan. Also, have I mentioned my Problem? It’s kind of unclear how the Creators feel about that sort of thing.

 _Anyway_ , where was I? Right, facing Varric, confusion on my face. Because the door’s apparently a bad idea. “Why not?”

“There’s a horde of people waiting outside to greet you as the ‘Herald of Andraste.’”

“Andraste? Isn’t that the god of the Chantry-ers or whatever they call themselves?”

“Something like that.”

“And they don’t find it odd thinking of me, a Dalish elf, as this Andraste person’s herald?”

“You’d think they’d have a tougher time reconciling that, sure, but the folks here are mostly those who really do view you as the Herald.”

“Ah.” I turn and look at the door. The idea that masses of Shemlen are standing outside of it, ready to… to do whatever religious practices Shemlen engage in — and to do them with _me_ — is frankly terrifying. I’m fairly confident that actually going through such an experience will be infinitely worse. I turn back to the now smirking Varric (He can probably feel my terror. I imagine it’s quite palpable.) and ask, my voice somehow squeaky again (This is odd, even for _me_ and my personally altered voice), “Would you please recommend an alternate route?”

And so, Varric and I are now climbing through the window in the side of the ‘Room’ and avoiding the notice of the Shemlen apparently awaiting my exit at the door. We reach the Chantry (Apparently Outsiders refer to their holy sites with the same word they use as their religion’s name. This is baffling to me, but how is that any different from the rest of my still growing experience with Outsiders? None at all.) not long after, my dwarven companion well-versed in where everything in ‘Haven’ (That’s where we are, I’ve learned. A relatively temporary settlement around a Chantry (So baffling.).) is, and I quickly find myself in a situation I don’t want to be in.

The chantry-man (I’m not sure what his official title is, and I’m not eager to get to know him better.) from the forward camp, who was very vocal in accusing me of killing everyone at the Conclave, is now stepping up his efforts to have me in a cell again. Weirdly enough, _Cassandra_ seems to now be very certain that I’m not responsible for those murders and is actively defending me with all her authority, which appears to be more than the chantry-man. I’ve no idea how this strange twist in Cassandra’s thoughts has coming about, but I, for one, am not going to complain.

Cassandra suddenly grabs a book, slams it on the map table, jabs a finger at it, and pointedly asks chantry-man, “Do you know what this is?”

 _A book,_ I’m tempted to say. Dalish tradition is passed on orally, but I’m still familiar with the concept of written language.

As it turns out, this book is apparently a writ given by the now dead Divine Justinia to Cassandra and Leliana that gives them the authority to reinstate the ‘Inquisition.’ My first thought about this would probably make Varric laugh (Admittedly, this is because he apparently finds everything I do funny.): ‘Justinia’ and ‘Inquisition’ are odd words. No really. My Clan doesn’t really use those ‘juh,’ ‘kuh,’ and ‘zuh’ sounds, but I’m at least somewhat familiar with the ‘kuh’ sound from the Shemlen phrase for ma serranas (“Thank you”).

“Inkwassision… Chustinia…” I mutter to myself, testing the taste of the words on my tongue and earning myself a curious look from a dark skinned and haired lady dressed in really… I guess ‘fluffy’ best describes her clothing; I don’t really have a better word for it. Oh, I’d also call it impractical. At least, it looks very impractical to someone like me, who’s used to living in the wild. Speaking of, I’d really like to take a step outside. All of these ‘Rooms’ are making me antsy, especially with the shouting, book slamming, and all.

“Hamasha,” Cassandra says, her brisk tone drawing me out of my thoughts.

“Hm?” Oh. Everyone is staring at me again. I need to get better about this, don’t I? It was never really a problem with the Clan, since most of the Clan avoided speaking with me so frequently. I hastily look around for Varric, since he probably wouldn’t mind explaining what’s going on, but it seems he slipped away at some point. Great. “Ah. Sorry. Would you please repeat that?”

Cassandra sighs as Leliana and the two other Shemlen present (The impractical woman and a blonde haired man wearing armor with sturdy, feathery shoulder plates.) lightly laugh, though the impractical woman is doing her best to stifle her laughter.

“I was introducing you to Commander Cullen,” Cassandra answers wearily as she gestures at the feathery Shem. “He is in charge of the Inquisition's forces.”

What a weird name. 'Commander?' I've never heard of anything like it. Shemlen and they're strange words and names... “It's a pleasure to meet you, Commander,” I shyly say before adding, “Your feathers are nice.” Commander seems embarrassed by my comment, and the three female Shemlen are openly laughing.  My eyes dart between them as I try to figure out why they're laughing at what I said. Is it inappropriate to compliment a Shem's feathers? Nothing comes to mind, so I weakly ask, “I don't understand. Did I say something wrong?”

“I...” Commander responds, his cheeks growing redder with each passing moment. “No. No, it's nothing, Herald.”

Herald? Oh right, they think I'm involved with this Andraste person. I'm torn between begging off being associated with a Shem religion, but at the same time, I want them to like me. Also, I think it's probably best to speak less, lest I make more inappropriate comments about people's feathers.

I pull myself out of my thoughts just in time to notice the impractical woman slightly bow as she says, “Andaran atish'an ([formal Elven greeting] “I dwell in this place, a place of peace”).”

I gasp in excitement. A Shem who speaks Elven! “Aneth ara! ([Elven greeting used between Dalish] “My safe place")” I happily exclaim. Normally I wouldn't speak to an Outsider in such a way, but I'm much too eager to establish a good relationship with someone who could possibly be the only Elven speaking Shem I've ever met. “Ir abelas; a'melin re? (“I'm sorry; your name is?”)”

Impractical woman is laughing awkwardly now. “I'm sorry,” she replies with an accent that I know I've heard before during my Clan's travels to the west, “but I'm afraid you have heard the extent of my Elven. I have no idea what you just said, Herald.”

“Ah.” I try my hardest not to let my disappointment show, but I'm apparently not doing a good job of it, since she looks rather abashed. “Ah. That's... My apologies, I was asking your name. I'm afraid I missed hearing it.”

“Oh! I am Josephine Montilyet,” she answers.

“Ah.” I scuff my feet for a moment before somehow mustering the courage to ask, “Are all Shem names like yours and Commander's? I have never heard names quite like Chosefeen and Commander.”

The four Shemlen simultaneously share a silent, baffled look for a moment before bursting into outright, loud laughter.

It's hopeless. I'll never understand Shemlen.

* * *

“The Crossroads shouldn't be far from here,” Cassandra announces as she leads us down the path through the mountains of Radalas (“Ferelden”) that the Shemlen have named 'The Hinterlands.' Regrettably, I never got the chance to figure out what changed my clothing while I slept in Haven (That's where I woke up before. It's between the border of Radalas and Orlei (“Orlais”).), which I fear will come back to haunt me later. Creators, please let them have noticed nothing.

As I am still the only person the Inquisition (Varric helped me with my pronunciation along the way here, though I had to endure his chuckling at my frequent mistakes.) knows of who can seal the rifts to the Beyond that are seemingly everywhere now, so I am once again playing tag-along to Cassandra, Solas, and Varric. Oh, I should mention that I am, for the time being, staying with them. They are under the impression that I'm staying to properly seal the Breach (It seems we managed to seal it halfway last time, or something like that. I am not ignorant of the ways of magic, but I'm not going to pretend I understand how the Breach works or why it works that way.) and to close all the rifts that still remain open, and I'm not going to disabuse them of that notion.

Don't misunderstand: I _do_ care about stopping the Beyond from bleeding into our realm, but the main reason I want to stay with the Inquisition, frankly, is I'm hesitant to return to my Clan. I was a pariah before, and I'm certain having a strange magical mark on my left hand will only make matters worse. I'm unsure what Keeper would say at this point, and I'm doing my best not to speculate about that because my thoughts go dark places whenever do.

Oh. We're apparently defending townsfolk from templars and mages. I should help with that. I do my best to only electrocute the attacking Outsiders, but I'm fairly certain that I've managed to accidentally hit one or two of the people I'm supposed to be protecting, so I think I'll just stick to barriers and healing magic from now on. The last thing I want to do is damage the goodwill the Inquisition apparently has for me.

As the last of the attackers die (Cassandra cut off his head. She is doing nothing to dispel my fear of her.), I'm bustled over to meet another chantry-person. I manage to stay focused long enough to hear her name this time, but to my dismay, it's another strange Shem name. Why do all of their names sound so... hard and aggressive?

“I'm pleased to meet you, Mother Chissell,” I shyly say in greeting. Varric is behind me stifling laughter, and it seems Solas is also beginning to find my difficulty amusing. My cheeks are beginning to match the shade of my eyes.

Mother Chissell apparently does not seem to mind that I am mangling her name, which is something I'm very thankful for. She explains that to deal with the Chantry (Did I mention that's why we are here? I'm really no good at this.), we need to make some of the chantry-people in Vall-Royo (At least I can pronounce this one.) doubt their cause. I have no idea where this Vall-Royo place is, but my three companions seem to, so I resolve to just follow their lead. Again.

Before we leave for Vall-Royo, Cassandra takes a tour of the Crossroads and takes inventory of all the problems the villagers are having, which is apparently quite a lot. They don't have food or warm clothing, the mages and templars are causing mayhem everywhere, thieves have taken up residency along the Eastern Road, and one of the only elves in the village has a breathing problem that requires some kind of potion from her son who's gone off to live in the mountains with a cult. What complicated lives Outsiders lead... One would think they'd just move to a new location (Well, not the elf, but the certainly the rest of the lot) that's less dangerous, but like all Outsiders, they're much too tied to their 'Rooms.'

Cassandra, Solas, and Varric proceed to go about taking care of this tremendous list of problems, dragging me along to close rifts and heal wounds. I'm growing more and more adept at both of these tasks by sheer necessity, and oddly enough, I'm beginning to enjoy myself. Well, the healing part anyway. I've always known these spells — as any good First does — but I've never been allowed to practice them so much on someone besides myself. Mithra once pretended she wanted me to heal her after one of her hunts, but she was really just luring me into an isolated location. I _did_ end up doing some healing in the end, but it was the cuts she'd carved into my face. Keeper asked what happened, of course, but when Mithra explained that a rabid wolf had attacked me, I knew better than to disagree. Getting her or Alerion in trouble with Keeper always led to more trouble for me.

I still have the scars. Well actually, I have a _lot_ of scars (All gifts from my Clan.), but the scars from that particular encounter are the only ones I have on my face. I healed them the best I could, but they're still deep. The worst is a long, jagged one that runs from my chin diagonally up through my lips and up to the bridge of my nose (Eating was a difficult endeavor for a few days after I got it.). Along with it, I have three on my forehead (The lowest of them is short and runs through my left eyebrow at an angle.) that would form a sort of triangle if they were closer together, and one that traces the left side of my jawline from just behind my chin back to just under my ear.

Speaking of scars, a templar managed to slash my arm pretty bad just now, though I suppose he got the raw end of the deal. He's currently dead on the ground and gushing blood out of his eye socket on account of a crossbow bolt being in it (This seems to be Bianca's favorite way to introduce herself.). Oh, and it seems Cassandra and Solas have just taken care of leader of the templar camp. One more task taken care of for the good people of the Crossroads who are too attached to their 'Rooms' to move somewhere less threatening on a daily basis.

Throughout the day, I occasionally spy the herbs I need to regularly use on myself, and since I’m not certain how often we’ll be in the wilds where I can find them, I make sure to grab each and every one. I do my best to avoid being noticed, but I’m no good at stealth, and Solas and Varric both see me picking herbs at one point or another (Cassandra, blessedly, is too focused on leading us from place to place to notice me.). Varric never pays this much mind, and while Solas lightly frowns at my actions, he says nothing.

It's been a long day of killing, looting, and healing, and the sun is setting, so Cassandra takes us up river where we set up camp near the ranch that belongs to a horsemaster Commander Cullen asked us to check on while we were in the area. I'm not entirely certain how wise this is, given that there seems to be a dire wolf problem in this part of the mountains. My companions are accomplished at killing anything ranging from a ram to a fully armored and trained templar, but even they need to rest eventually.

I voice this concern, but Cassandra isn't worried. “We'll take turns keeping watch, of course.”

This _would_ be a solid plan, if the guard duty roster consisted of _only_ my companions, but as it so happens, it includes me. Also, I'm first watch. Fenedhis. I _really_ want to go to sleep.

Blessedly, my shift passes by without issue or my falling asleep (Ma serannas, Creators.), and I happily wake up Varric to take my place. After a solid night's rest (Sleeping under the stars again is oddly refreshing in its own way.), we again begin to work through a myriad of tasks. Besides finishing up what we didn't do yesterday, we also speak with the horsemaster, collect the horses he’s ‘giving’ us (Not that one can truly own a creature of the wild, domesticated or not.), mark locations for watch towers, kill a demon that's taken control of a wolf den, return a druffalo to its owner (I prefer the term 'captor,' since, again, that's what these Outsiders are really doing.), and at this moment, we are assisting a lone Dalish elf who’s being attacked by a demon outside a cave.

As the creature falls, she says, “Ma serannas,” and turns to face us more fully. Her expression quickly becomes surprised before twisting into one of disdain. “Oh, you’re flat ears,” she adds dismissively. Apparently she’s noticed that neither I nor Solas have vallaslin. “I appreciate the assistance, but what lies within this cave is fit only for Dalish eyes.”

Solas harshly responds with a voice like ice, “Ma harel, da’len, (“You should fear me, little child.”)” at the same moment I cry with no small amount of indignation, “Ele din flat-ears! (“We’re not flat-ears!”)” He and I glance at each other in shock. He’s likely looking at me like that for defending him, but as for me… I am adding him to my list of scary people alongside Cassandra. That’s a shame. I was just beginning to get over the inherent fear I had of him on account of his being an elf. Cassandra and Varric are, of course, watching the three of us in confusion, since neither of them speak Elven. The mysterious elf is fixated on Solas now, it seems, her gaze fearful. See? I’m not the only one! Her mouth opens and closes interchangeably for a few seconds before she finally dashes away from us and the cave.

Solas watches her leave for a few moments before turning his attention back to me, causing me to instinctively flinch away. His eyes soften a bit at this, and he says, “Ir abelas, Hamasha. _Ma_ din harel. (“I’m sorry, Hamasha. _You_ needn’t fear me.”)”

I give him an uncertain smile but say nothing, since I’d rather not admit that I _do_ fear him and have no reason for that to change. Solas looks like he wants to say more, but I’m afraid of what it might be, so I quickly turn to Cassandra and Varric and divert the conversation. “Sorry to have kept you waiting. Please lead on.”

She flicks her eyes briefly in Solas’ direction before returning them to me and then ultimately back to him. “Solas, that elf seemed to be _afraid_ of you. _What_ did you say to her?”

“Nothing of import,” he calmly replies.

Cassandra doesn’t quite look like she believes him, and her eyes find mine once more. Fenedhis. Caught between two scary people is _not_ a good place to be.

“Ah,” I mutter. Well, what could he have _plausibly_ said that she would believe that _won’t_ make him mad at me? “Solas warned her that a rift may be nearby. She ran away before he got the chance to mention my mark.”

That mollifies them both, which is good because I’m about ready to start hyperventilating. Is Solas going to continue to keep doing things like that? Is he going to continue to expect me to lie for him? I’m _not_ comfortable with that, but there’s nothing I can do about it without putting myself in the line of fire. Maybe it’s my fate to be others’ plaything? Oh, everyone’s going into the cave. I better get moving.

It turns out an ancient Elvhen device intended for measuring the strength of the Veil, the barrier between our world and the Beyond, is inside. Solas not only takes care of that but also uses veilfire (I’ve never seen a veilfire torch before, so this is particularly interesting to me.) to expose a rune script for enchanting. How is it that none of the rebel mages in the area have discovered any of this? Haven’t they been holed up in this area for some time now? Well, whatever. Everyone’s leaving now, and I’d rather not be left alone in the dark.

Mounting up outside (Everyone else is treating the horses like they’re beneath us. That’s really saddening, but in the end, I say nothing out of a mixture of shyness and fear. I _really_ don’t want to lose their goodwill. I’ll just have to satisfy myself with giving the horses assisting us the proper acknowledgment due for their aid whenever I get the chance.), we search the area for the bandits causing trouble for the people in the Crossroads. We find them in short order, and despite their high quality gear and equipment, my companions dispatch them handily. Moving into a nearby pass through a crevice, we make a discovery that really _does_ make me begin to hyperventilate: A high dragon and a healthy amount of drakes are roosting in the vale the crevice leads to.

Now, I understand that Outsiders are rather fond of staying in the same place, building 'Rooms,' and generally living in dangerous conditions, but _surely_ even the most immovable Outsider would see the wisdom in moving their home _away_ from a high dragon’s nest. _Surely_. I voice this to Cassandra, who is carefully peaking around our cover at the nearby apex predators, and she answers, “No, that’s not practical. I hate to say it, but we'll have to slay the drakes and the dragon in order to protect the villagers.”

I must have misheard her because I thought I heard her say something about slaying a dragon because it’s impractical to move away. Maybe I got lost in my thoughts without realizing it, and she actually said 'Wouldn't it be funny if we killed a dragon? Haha. But seriously, let’s just go move the village.' Cassandra is readying her sword and shield. Creators, she honestly plans to kill a dragon instead of telling people to stop being stubborn and just move their settlement?

Forget the Inquisition; I'll take my chances with the Clan. As she moves to leave our cover, I turn to Varric with a silent, pleading expression. Incredibly, he just sighs, readies Bianca, _and moves to follow her_ . A sort of strangled sound is beginning to emanate from my throat as I turn to Solas. Surely he won’t be part of this madness? He may not be Dalish, but he’s no flat ear either, so he _must_ be able to see how messed up Cassandra’s priorities are?

Solas gives me another of his enigmatic smiles before asking in a tone so lackadaisical that he might very well have been commenting about the weather, “Shall we, Hamasha?”

I give up. This is madness, and I must be mad too because I’m actually following him as he rushes out after them. See, this right here is probably why Keeper said I’m not ready for my vallaslin. A proper Dalish elf wouldn’t choose to attack a high dragon instead of helping move a settlement. Well, actually, I think the real reason I’m currently casting a barrier on Cassandra and healing a minor wound Varric just received from a now dead drake is because I’ve begun to grow found of my companions and don’t want to watch them get eaten.

Regardless. This is still madness. More drakes are appearing in droves out of seemingly nowhere and attacking, and while Cassandra is commanding most of the attention, she’s taking a heavy beating, which I’m finding myself hard pressed to help with because _drakes are trying to eat me_. I let out a pained yelp as one of the nicks me, which draws Solas’ and Varric’s notice. Without the slightest hesitation, they execute a perfect combo that draws the drakes’ attention away: Solas casts a temporary rift to slow the drakes’ movements that doesn’t hindering my own in the slightest, and Varric follows this up by shooting a bolt into the scaly hide of one in the middle of the pack, which causes it to explode in a hellish storm of guts, and by twisting Bianca upwards, holding down her trigger, and showering the lot of them with bolts from above.

“T-thanks,” I mutter in awe at the incredible display of their fighting prowess. Will I ever be that good? I can’t help but feel like that level of skill is utterly unachievable for someone like me. It doesn’t help that, when it comes down to it, I really don’t have a knack for killing. I suppose I’ll just have to be happy with healing and protective spells.

Solas is already back to tossing ice spells at the high dragon and the occasional chained lightning spell at incoming drakes. Varric tosses me an easy grin, but says nothing as he and Bianca continue to work their own sort of magic, planting bolts in the dragon’s and drakes’ hides at a speed that ought not be possible for any crossbow, no matter how well designed. Seeing that Cassandra’s guard is about to break and leave her vulnerable to retaliation from the dragon, I shove aside my thoughts and cast a barrier over her before setting about healing the wounds she suffered during my earlier distraction.

The fight with the high dragon lasts nearly an hour, and not once during that time does the tide of incoming drakes abate for more than a few minutes at a time. I’m utterly baffled by this, since I’ve never heard of one high dragon having so many offspring at the same time (This is especially odd when one considers how close by the Crossroads is. How has _nobody_ noticed this problem until now? Or maybe they did, and they were simply so embarrassed by their stubborn unwillingness to move that they don’t tell passerby. That seems really likely, actually.), but it’s hard to focus on such details while in the midst of fighting said high dragon and drakes. Eventually, Cassandra strikes a felling blow by planting her sword in the high dragon’s head after the she makes the mistake of letting her neck droop too much, and the (hopefully) last of the drakes, seeing that their protector is dead, promptly flee.

“Creators,” I mutter in shock as the gravity of what’s happened begins to settle in. “We actually did it. We _killed_ a high dragon.”

“Cassandra _does_ hail from a family known for hunting dragons,” Solas remarks with the slightest of smiles.

Our leader (I mean, she _is_ the one who leads our little band of travelers around and is the first to jump into battle when we’re attacked.) scoffs at this. “Nobody in my family has engaged in such activity for a long time, Solas.”

“True,” he responds, “but I was confident you would rise to the occasion.”

I release an awkward, strained sort of laugh as I plop down onto the ground, sitting on my hip for a moment of recuperation. “It still would have been easier to move the settlement.”

Varric outright laughs as Cassandra rolls her eyes, while Solas merely continues to lightly smile as he looks off into the distance at something that likely only he can see. Right about now, I could use a nap.

* * *

Vall-Royo (Seriously, Shemlen are the worst when it comes to naming people and places.) is a tremendous, extravagant city, and as Cassandra leads us into the city proper, I internally sigh at how eminently impractical building such a place seems to me. At this point, however, it’s just one more example atop countless others, so I really ought do my best to ignore it lest I go mad. Incidentally, the people of the Crossroads were both terrified to hear that a high dragon had been in the area (Seriously, _how_ could they _not_ know that?!) and delighted to hear that the danger had already been taken care. Likewise, every other person in the mountains had been very pleased to hear that we had helped them with whatever they’d sent us out to do. But anyway, that is why we are now in Orlei, where we hope to handle the threat the Chantry poses.

The Inquisition messenger who greeted us a minute ago stressed that the chantry-people are hoping to make a public spectacle of us with the aid of templars. Despite this, we’re walking right into the thick of it. Honestly, all this seeking out danger is beginning to fray my nerves, but at least I’m confident the four of us will walk out alive. I mean, we (And by ‘we,’ I mean Cassandra, Solas, and Varric did. I helped a bit, sure, but I’m still very much a tagalong.) killed a high dragon — a _high dragon_. I’m not saying that templars aren’t scary (Which they absolutely are, especially for a mage like me, who has never lived in one of their Circles.), but relative to a high dragon, they’re the lesser threat.

Predictably, the confrontation in the middle of the city doesn’t go well, though to be fair, it doesn’t seem to go well for anybody but the templars, really. The chantry-people are humiliated by someone named Lord Seeker Lucius (Finally! A Shem name I can readily pronounce!), but not before we too are humiliated by my being too terrified to speak to the chantry-people while surrounded by so many people I don’t know. What can I say? I’m not good with crowds, and one really can’t expect me to be given that I’ve spent most of my life with the same band of people, whose entire numbers aren’t even half of the size of this crowd. This is precisely the problem Varric had helped me avoid that first day in Haven. Thankfully, my companions all seem to understand — even Cassandra. Scary or not, at least they seem to understand and accept me.

As we go to leave the city and return to Haven, something rather unexpected happens: An arrow slams into the ground causing me to scream (thankfully for only a second) as I fall backwards onto my butt as I inadvertently over compensate backwards in my efforts to dodge. Cassandra is saying something, but I’m a little too busy staring at where the arrow has pierced the paved road. Creators, just how tight must the draw of that archer’s bow have been to in order to shoot an arrow at a high enough speed that it can pierce stone? I might — _might_ — have understood if it had been a crossbow bolt, but the projectile in the road is very clearly an arrow, which means it was clearly shot using a bow.

“—l right, kid?” Varric asks, drawing my bright red (and still quite wide in shock) eyes up to him and away from the arrow.

“W-what?”

Varric sighs as he extends a hand to me, helping me up as much as he can, given how much taller I am than him. “I said, ‘Are you all right.’”

“Ah,” I helpfully (sarcasm) reply, as I finish rising to my feet. “I think so, yes. Thank you.”

He waves off my thanks at the precise moment Cassandra announces that we need to check around town for some messages hidden near red cloth. Apparently the arrow had a message tied to it. Oh, good. And here I thought someone might have just been shooting ridiculously fast arrows at me because I’m the evil Herald of Andraste. Still, this seems like the most impractical means of passing along a message ever, and as we move about the city finding these hidden messages, I grow more and more certain of this belief.

Eventually, it becomes clear that we’ve been given a tip about something important to the Inquisition, and as we move to the part of the city indicated in the tip, a message is passed along to us that we’ve been invited to attend a ball. Since I imagine the invitation isn’t referring to a sphere, I’m unsure of what, precisely, a ‘ball’ is. Oh, Varric says it’s a gathering of some sort, and the lady hosting it is hoping to meet with me. I’m not thrilled at the prospect, but they all assure me I won’t be going alone, so at least there’s that. We also have a brief conversation with an elf mage named Fiona something, but I’m admittedly still caught up in wondering why Outsiders would refer to gatherings and spheres with the same word, so I completely miss it.

Anyway, before we go to this gathering, we apparently need to act on the tip the mysterious archer gave us, so we’re off to take care of that. As it turns out, the tip had something to do with a Shem wearing a ridiculous mask (Huh. Now that I think about it, that describes everyone in this city, doesn’t it?), but I’m not quite certain why he was important — mostly because he’s dead and can’t answer whatever questions Cassandra might have had for him. Oh, I should clarify: He’s dead _now_ because the mysterious archer put an arrow straight through his mask and the rest of his head. Needless to say, blood is now everywhere, and I could really stand for a chance to wash my clothing. Vall-Royo has no shortage of water sources, but since I refuse to take off my clothing when there’s even the slightest chance someone could notice my Problem, I would need to actually jump in while still wearing it all.

“—ould be useful,” Varric says, bringing my attention back to what’s going on around me. “If she’s really a Friend of Red Jenny, then she could have valuable intel for the Inquisition…”

Apparently he’s arguing in favor of the archer (By the way, she’s an elf with blonde hair that’s cut in a peculiar fashion.) joining us, but Solas seems to be very much against it, and Cassandra is somewhere in the middle.

“Look,” the archer butts in, clearly frustrated, “let’s keep this simple, yeah? She (She points at me, making me flinch away. She’s an elf; as I’ve said, my own kin frighten me.) has the glowy hand, so she can get things back to normal. That’s what I want, and if you don’t let me help you, then don’t be surprised if you wake up one day with no breeches. (She jabs her thumb at a nearby pile of pants.)”

I gasp, immediately drawing everyone’s attention to me, but I’m much too concerned with what she said to worry about that right now. If she doesn’t come with us, someone might take off my pants? _NO! No, I_ cannot _allow that to happen!_ “Ah… I-I really, _really_ don’t want my ‘breeches’ stolen, so m-may she p-please come along?”

“Ahn? Ahn dirthas? (“What? What are you saying?”)” Solas asks indignantly, a certain coldness seeping into his tone.

I don’t have a really good answer for that. “Ah… Ase shemassan? (“She’s a quick arrow?”)” I hesitantly try, earning a scowl from both him _and_ the archer.

Luckily, Cassandra comes to my rescue, my request having apparently won her over. “If Hamasha is willing to give Sera (Oh good. Another easy to pronounce name.) a chance, Solas, then I’m sure we can as well.”

Solas says nothing in reply, but his expression is murderous. One disaster averted exchanged for another. Delightful.

Sera chooses that moment to blurt out, “Uuugh! I knew it! Of _course_ she’s elfy too!”

Ah. I see now why Solas isn’t happy with me. Creators, what have I gotten myself into?

* * *

“...Mistress Mai Bhalysch of Korse...”

Sera snickers at that, and I admit, I'm holding back the urge to giggle myself. Varric looks like he’s of a similar mind, but Cassandra and Solas are clearly less than thrilled.

“... and Mistress Lavellan, on behalf of the Inquisition.”

Creators, of _course_ he had to announce me as well. Already two masked Shemlen are descending upon me.

“Is it true that…” one of them starts to ask, but I’m already cringing away and hiding myself behind Cassandra.

“ _Help me_ ,” I whisper to her in a panic.

She takes mercy on me (Thank you, Creators…) and immediately takes charge of the situation, answering questions with a tone that brooks no argument. I release a shaky sigh of relief and quickly make my escape, hoping to move over to where my other three companions are clustered together.

It wasn’t meant to be, apparently, since _another_ masked Shem is slipping out of the crowd (Why do all of the Shemlen in Orlei insist on wearing masks? It’s so nerve wracking! If any one of them did something to me how could I even know who… Great. Now I’m thinking about being attacked again. Ugh.), saying something along the lines of the inquisition being a load of pig shit and challenging me to a duel to answer for this, that, or the other thing. Frankly, I’m not really certain _what_ exactly he’s saying, since I’m much too busy panicking.

“Ah,” I (so helpfully) utter as the man approaches. My eyes flick over to Cassandra, but she’s to have not noticed the man slipping away. “I, ah…”

Quite suddenly, icy magic swirls into being around him, encasing him in place as _yet another_ masked Shem (Seriously! It’s so frightening!) descends the stairs with her hand outstretched towards him. “My dear marquis,” she calmly says, her voice somehow carrying across the room without rising in volume (At a guess, I’d say magic is to blame.), “I do hope that you are not threatening one of my guests.”

“Madame Vivienne,” he gasps out, no doubt chilled to the bone by her magic.

But she’s no longer paying him any mind, her focus apparently set on me. I unconsciously take a step away, but if this ‘Madame Vivienne’ noticed, then she’s saying nothing of it. “My dear lady, you are the wounded party here. What would you have me do with this foolish, foolish man?”

Something swells up in me upon being called ‘my dear lady.’ Is my Problem really not that obvious? I had been under the impression that it was plain as day, given how the Clan always reacted to me, but hearing all of these strangers referring to me as a lady without pause… I’m slowly beginning to realize that perhaps my Problem is _not_ quite as obvious as my Clan would have me believe.

“My dear?” I hear her ask, startling me out of my thoughts.

“Ah. Sorry,” I reply, eliciting a laugh from Varric. ‘Madame Vivienne’ never moves her eyes from mine, however, so I swallow down my fear as best I can and hesitantly respond, “Ah… Could you remove his mask?”

This is, apparently, not the response ‘Madame Vivienne’ was expecting, since she looks mildly taken aback for a moment (Though it’s rather hard to tell through her mask.), before curiously asking, “Whyever is _that_ your concern?”

I’m not entirely certain that complete honesty is the best policy here, but something close to the truth… “All of these masks are making me… Uncomfortable, ‘Madame Vivienne.’”

She hesitates for all of a moment before reaching out and removing the mask this ‘Marquis’ is wearing. Nearby, the two masked Shemlen who had been talking to Cassandra also remove their masks, albeit with some hesitation. Apparently they’d been listening in. ‘Madame Vivienne,’ however, does not remove her own.

Still, I feel a bit better, so I say, “Thank you very much.”

She nods in acceptance of my thanks, her mask’s horns (Or perhaps they are part of a helm, which the mask is merely an addition? I’m not entirely sure.) dipping along with the movement. She turns the ‘Marquis,’ and with a snap of her fingers the shell of ice encasing him vanishes, leaving him sputtering and coughing. She proceeds to berate him (Or at least, I suspect this is what’s happening. Admittedly, I’m not familiar with all the words she’s using, but her tone certainly seems chastising.), and I hastily make my escape over to Varric, Solas, and Sera.

“Did I… do okay?” I ask them.

Varric merely chuckles as Solas calmly responds with an ever so slightly raised eyebrow, “It was certainly an interesting way to the diffuse the situation, but I cannot find fault with the results, Hamasha.” Diffusing the situation. Sure. That’s absolutely what I was doing. _Totally_.

Sera, however, watches me with a blatantly curious expression for a moment before she abruptly grins. “Oh, I get it. You’re a scaredy-cat, ain’t ya? The great and mighty Herald of Andraste, she of the glowy hand, _scared_ of some guy wearin’ a mask.” She breaks down into laughter, clutching her stomach. “That’s… _hilarious_!” she manages to gasp out before devolving into more laughter.

Sera’s laughter is, regrettably, drawing the attention of everybody nearby, including the still masked ‘Madame Vivienne.’ “Please!” I hastily whisper to her, my eyes wide with panic. “You’re making ‘Madame Vivienne’ look this way!”

“Why’re ya callin’ her that?” she says, her laughter finally subsiding. “She’s just some posh arse.”

‘Madame Vivienne’ unfortunately hears this and is incensed, but before she can tear into Sera, I ask in confusion, “I am getting her name wrong? I thought that’s what ‘Marquis’ called her… ‘Madame Vivienne.’” Everyone’s eyes are on me once again, making me cringe. “Ah. So that’s not her name?”

Sera breaks down into helpless laughter yet again, Varric is barely containing the urge to join her, Cassandra and Solas share an unreadable look, and the Shem apparently not named ‘Madame Vivienne’ appears to be torn about how to proceed.

Somehow, I get the feeling that I’d be better off just asking Cassandra to handle this one. So I do, already planning out how I’m going to collapse into my Shem bed back in Haven the moment we return there.

* * *

My plan to escape into sleep is regrettably interrupted by Cassandra hauling me for a discussion with the Inquisition’s advisors about to proceed. I try to explain that they really shouldn’t keep including me in these discussions and wouldn’t it be better to include someone like Vivienne (Who has been accepted into the Inquisition on Cassandra’s invitation and, it turns out, is just named ‘Vivienne’; apparently ‘Madame’ and ‘Marquis’ are titles, like Keeper and not actual names.) instead, but she continues to bodily drag me, saying that I have a ‘unique perspective’ that is invaluable to their planning. I don’t disagree with her assessment of my ‘unique perspective,’ and I’m afraid to dispute her judgment regarding its value, since that might give her the impression that I think I’m right and she’s wrong. I mean, I’m _totally_ right, and she’s _absolutely_ wrong, but I am _not_ going to voice that aloud. I’ve (for the most part) avoided incurring the ire of anybody in the Inquisition, and I’d rather like it to stay that way, thank you very much.

As the discussion in the unfolds, it becomes clear that we have two options regarding how to proceed with sealing the Breach: Seek the help of the mages in temporarily boosting my mark’s power, or seek the help of the templars in weakening the Breach enough for me to seal it with my mark’s current power. Leliana is firmly in favor of the mages, Cullen (Whose name is not, apparently, ‘Commander’ for the same reason that ‘Madame’ isn’t Vivienne’s name.) the templars, and Cassandra and Josephine (I’m still not quite solid on pronouncing ‘Josephine,’ but I’m getting there.) both believe that either could work just as well as the other.

This leaves me in the unfortunate position of being the deciding vote. See? I _knew_ being in here was a bad idea… As it happens, I’m rather wary of the idea of putting more power into my mark, even temporarily, so I find the templars to be the safer option. That being said, I’m a… What do Shemlen call people like me again? An apostate? Yes, that’s it. I’m actually sure of it, since Keeper told me to be very wary if I’m ever around Outsiders who call me that. That means I should avoid of the templars, so…

“If you really want my opinion,” I hesitantly say, “I would… prefer the mages.”

Cullen isn’t thrilled, but I’m not sensing any animosity, so that’s good. Plans now being made to visit Redcliffe soon, I slip out as quietly as possible. I’m sure Cassandra would doubtlessly enjoy having my ‘unique perspective’ around, but I am simply done. And so, I begin to make my way down to my cabin for a nap. Oh, Varric corrected me on this, but honestly, he was a tad confusing. He said it’s called a ‘cabin,’ but when I asked what a ‘room’ was then, his answer actually more or less described my cabin. I pointed this out, and he said yes, that I wasn’t wrong. The strange thing is, his description of a ‘room’ could also apply to where the advisors still are, plotting away. But that’s just plain weird. At this point, I’m presuming Outsiders do these sorts of things in order to be purposefully confusing to me people like me.

As I leave the Chantry, lost in thought, I lose my footing on the stairs and stumble forward only to be caught halfway into my fall by a Shem dressed in full armor, weapons and all. Caught between wanting to cringe away from a potential threat and wanting to thank him for his help, I settle on saying (what else?), “Ah.”

The Shem raises an eyebrow, a smirk crossing his face for a moment before he says, “Well hello there. Fall here often?”

I giggle at that for a moment as he hauls me up to my feet. “I try not to?” I manage to say, which makes his smirk grow.

“The name’s Cremisius Aclassi,” he says. “‘Krem’ for short. And you are?”

Why is he calling me ‘Krem’ then asking my name? Oh... Oh, he means _his_ name is Krem. Right. “H-Hamasha.”

“‘H-Hamasha' or just ‘Hamasha?’” His smirk widens even further into a full grin.

Ah. How often have I made that same mistake in the past week? Getting someone’s name wrong because I didn’t ask this sort of question right when I met them? “J-just Hamasha,” I clarify, a small smile growing on my own face. He seems nice enough. Most Shemlen wouldn’t have bothered to help a ‘knife-ear’ like me. Well, that’s not _quite_ true. They’d help the ‘Herald of Andraste,’ but he doesn’t seem to know that’s the name people have taken to calling me. I wish they’d stop with that. I mean, part of it is because I’m not the ‘herald’ of some Shemlen religious figure, but more importantly (at least to me), I am _Hamasha_ . That’s the name I chose for myself, so that’s what I want to be called; not ‘Herald,’ or ‘Your Holiness,’ or whatever else they want to call me — _Hamasha_. “And thank you, Krem.”

“It was my pleasure, Hamasha,” he says, giving me an amicable nod. See, if he really disliked elves, then he could have played off the catch like a ‘whoops, thought you were human’ or something like that. Yet here he is, saying it was his ‘pleasure.’ I already like him. “If I might impose,” he continues, “I could use some help.”

Or maybe he’ll treat me like a servant after all. Fenedhis. And I really _was_ beginning to like him. “Ah. May I ask what the help is?”

“I’m just looking to deliver a message to whoever’s in charge here, but no one around seems to know who that _is_ precisely. Do you know where I should be going?”

Oh. Well now I feel ridiculous having doubted him like that. I thought he’d give me something to deliver, like the good little servant most Shemlen envision my kin to be. “No one’s really formally in _charge_ at the moment, at least that I’m aware of, but I can direct you to Cassandra. She’d know who should get the message.”

“That’d be great, thanks.”

I lead him back into the Chantry, down the large open ‘room’ (I know I’m being repetitious, but that is a seriously confusing word to me.), and knock on the door where the four advisors are still planning out our return to the Hinterlands of Radalas. A moment passes before the heavy wooden door swings inwards revealing the inquisitive then pleased face of Cassandra. It occurs to me what’s about to happen at the precise moment it was too late to flee. “There you are, Herald. I was wondering where you’d run off to.”

“Oh, _you’re_ the Herald of Andraste?” Krem says in realization, and I can already see that he’s regarding me somewhat differently, his eyes a tad more calculating than before. Ugh. I should have left him at the door alone. Is it too much to ask for _someone_ to not call me that accursed title? I don’t want to be like ‘Madame Vivienne,’ ‘Commander Cullen,’ ‘Ambassador Montilyet,’ ‘Seeker Cassandra,’ and whoever else I know with a title who I might be forgetting at this moment. I don’t want to be ‘Herald Hamasha,’ ‘Your Holiness Hamasha,’ or ‘ _Whatever else_ Hamasha.’ I only want to be Hamasha — _just_ Hamasha. Something inside of me snaps as I think this, a more ferocious side of me emerging who can make demands and command respect. I open my mouth to set them all straight, to let them know how things _really_ are:

“J-just ‘Hamasha,’ p-please,” I timidly squeak out in an altogether pitiable voice that no one would ever take seriously. Oh well. We all start somewhere, right?

“Right, right,” Krem says with a small laugh. “I can appreciate that, Hamasha.” Creators, bless this Shem. I have no idea if I’ll ever see him again after today, but he’s officially on my list of amazing people, right alongside Keeper and Varric. Wow. There’s now more Outsiders on that list than my people from my Clan… My growing love of the Outsiders at least makes some sort of sense now.

Cassandra’s eyes flick back and forth between Krem and me for a moment before finally settling on me. “My apologies, Hamasha. May I ask who this is?”

“Ah. T-this is Krem, and he has a message for who’s in charge. I didn’t know who that was, if anyone, and I figured you might?”

“I see. In that case, why don’t you _both_ come in,” she says, stepping back to clear the way into the room. “Krem can give us his message then take his leave. Hamasha, I must insist that you be present for our planning. You are a critical voice of leadership.”

I want to say no. To say, ‘Well, this leader says she needs sleep,’ or something along those lines. At least something that has some sort of reasoning backing it up. Instead (and quite unintentionally, I might add), a whining noise escapes me for a moment before my self-preservation instinct catches up with me and tells me to shut up.

This elicits laughter from both of them, which in turn draws curious looks from the other three advisors as Krem slips into the room with me begrudgingly following. “What are you laughing about?” Cullen asks, clearly having missed my whine but not the laughing.

“Ah,” I mutter. “Just making a fool of myself.” Everyone thankfully left it alone at that.

Krem, it turns out, is here on behalf of a group known as “The Bull’s Chargers,” a name coming from their leader’s moniker “The Iron Bull,” and they are providing us with information free of charge along with an invitation to see them in action and discuss purchasing their services in the future. Everyone is discussing the offer now, though ‘everyone’ does not include me. I’m currently slumped in a chair, too tired to sit with good posture much less think properly at this point. I want to leave, but Cassandra is now keeping a watchful eye on me to ensure I ‘participate,’ though I’m not sure how what I’m doing right now counts as ‘participation.’ Trying to fight off my imminent collapse, I sleepily note that the four of them all seem generally keen regarding the idea, and…

You know what? Whatever. I just don’t care right now. Consciousness is overrated.

I fall asleep in the chair, my head lolled back against the wall.


	3. In Hushed Whispers, Pt 1 (AKA How I Met ‘The Iron Bull’ and Learned How to Wiggle)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hamasha and her companions meet The Bull’s Chargers and their leader, whom she is attracted to in spite of his violent method of fighting. The group then returns to Redcliffe where they gain a new companion, run unwittingly into shenanigans involving Time, and meet a mage who teaches Hamasha what it means to wiggle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Dragon Age: Inquisition or any other BioWare intellectual property. Aqun-Athlok is a fan-based work and not sold for profit.
> 
> ***WARNING: PAST ABUSE is heavily hinted at and at some points outright mentioned. This chapter includes GRAPHICALLY DEPICTED VIOLENCE (including DISMEMBERMENT) and SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. Reader be advised.
> 
> ***SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for any Dragon Age game — they're going to happen. You’ve been warned.

_I want to say no. To say, ‘Well, this leader says she needs sleep,’ or something along those lines. At least something that has some sort of reasoning backing it up. Instead (and quite unintentionally, I might add), a whining noise escapes me for a moment before my self-preservation instinct catches up with me and tells me to shut up._

_This elicits laughter from both of them, which in turn draws curious looks from the other three advisors as Krem slips into the room with me begrudgingly following. “What are you laughing about?” Cullen asks, clearly having missed my whine but not the laughing._

_“Ah,” I mutter. “Just making a fool of myself.” Everyone thankfully left it alone at that._

_Krem, it turns out, is here on behalf of a group known as “The Bull’s Chargers,” a name coming from their leader’s moniker “The Iron Bull,” and they are providing us with information free of charge along with an invitation to see them in action and discuss purchasing their services in the future. Everyone is discussing the offer now, though ‘everyone’ does not include me. I’m currently slumped in a chair, too tired to sit with good posture much less think properly at this point. I want to leave, but Cassandra is now keeping a watchful eye on me to ensure I ‘participate,’ though I’m not sure how what I’m doing right now counts as ‘participation.’ Trying to fight off my imminent collapse, I sleepily note that the four of them all seem generally keen regarding the idea, and…_

_You know what? Whatever. I just don’t care right now. Consciousness is overrated._

_I fall asleep in the chair, my head lolled back against the wall._

\---

 **Aqun-Athlok**  
By: Eva Grimm  
_Chapter Three: In Hushed Whispers, Pt 1 (AKA How I Met ‘The Iron Bull’ and Learned How to Wiggle)_

_“All that for her? And here she didn’t get Alexius anything.”_

_“Send him a fruit basket. Everyone loves those.”_

_“Wait, a ‘fruit basket?’ Why would you only use a basket for storing fruit? Surely it can be used for other things as well?”_

_“You are just about the oddest person I’ve ever met.”_

\---

“Hamasha.”

“Keeper,” I sleepily mutter as I wake, my neck feeling quite sore and my body strangely upright. “Ame, sou—”

It’s at this precise moment that I coax my tired eyes open only to find Cassandra’s face not far from mine, her light brown eyes staring directly into my own light red ones. Needless to say, I didn’t finish my sentence, as I was much too busy yelping, trying to hastily back away, and cracking my head painfully on the wall behind me (The presence of which I remember much too late to be of help.) before falling out of the chair onto the cold stone floor. I’d say this is the worst way I’ve ever been woken up before, but that would be a lie.

“My apologies,” she states as she offers me a gloved hand back to my feet, where I waver unsteadily as my sleep and pain addled brain desperately attempts to get its (and accordingly my) bearings. “You had fallen asleep, and someone needed to rouse you.”

I want to tell Cassandra that essentially anyone else would have been better choice for the task of rousing me. Now, I may not be in prime condition for assessing danger, but this seems relatively straightforward enough: Telling her that would be a very bad idea. “Ah.” Oh good. And here I’d been fearing my close encounter with the wall would have miraculously made me a tad bolder. At least that question’s been resolved now.

“Come,” she says as she turns towards the open door of the war room. “We all need our rest. We leave early tomorrow for the Storm Coast.”

The Storm Coast? Why… Oh right. Krem’s message. Regardless, I am _not_ about to give up the chance to sleep some more, even in a Shem bed.

\---

I see now why the Outsiders call this place the ‘Storm Coast.’ I mean, awful weather like this surely can’t be unending, but if this torrential thunderstorm is stereotypical of the area, then I see how it could be the inspiration for the name. Cassandra is currently speaking with Agent Harding, who _somehow_ rode out ahead of us and managed to scrounge together at least a preliminary report of what we can expect in the area (How she could have done this is baffling. We traveled by horseback, and while we weren’t traveling at the swiftest of paces, Agent Harding and her men could have only arrived at best a half day ahead of us.). I’d ask, but I’m much too busy bemoaning how heavy my pale blonde hair is on account of the rain. I mentioned there’s a torrential thunderstorm going on, yes? With my luck, I’ll probably be fried by a lightning bolt. Well actually, if I’m being fair, I probably wouldn’t be the first person zapped when I take height into account. I’m not short, per se, but typically only Durgen’len (“Children of the Stone”; “Dwarves”) are shorter than me.

Speaking of horses, ours are not exactly thrilled by the weather (I can’t blame them.), yet Solas and I are the only people in our party of four who have dismounted and are tending to the horses. Baffling. Oh, I suppose I should mention that only Cassandra, Solas, Varric, and I are here. I had expected Sera and Vivienne to join us, but it seems Vivienne declined the offer to travel with us when she heard where we were going (Maybe her Shem clothes don’t do well in rain?), and Cassandra elected to not wake the deeply asleep Sera the morning of our departure (She’d apparently had a lively first evening among the Inquisition. At least, that’s what I was told the innkeeper said.). Given the degree of distaste Cassandra seems to have for Varric, I’m frankly surprised she put up only a cursory argument with him before allowing him along as well. Perhaps she didn’t wish to be in a traveling party consisting of only herself and two elven apostates (Yes, all mages are technically apostates since the Shemlen circles collapsed awhile back, but Solas and I were technically apostates even before then.). Either that or she’s objective enough to know that Varric is a valuable traveling partner in these times, given how handy he is with Bianca.

Cassandra and Varric finally dismount and secure their horses at the camp Harding’s men prepared (Again, _how_ did they have this much time?), and together, the four of us depart down the rain slicked, muddy hill towards the coast with Cassandra leading the way. We hear the fighting before we see it, which is impressive, given the loud howling of the wind and relatively frequent rumbling of thunder. The poor visibility the rain affords us is just that much worse. Our de facto leader draws her sword and shield and proceeds to rush forward as quickly as she can without falling losing her footing. The rest of us follow, but the three of us apparently find the slippery hill more perilous than her, since we swiftly lose sight of her for a few moments before the battle enters our field of vision.

My eyes aren’t the sharpest, especially not in this weather, but it would be _impossible_ to miss the massive Hunvhen (“Qunari”) wreaking havoc with his greataxe (Which incidentally appears to be bigger than me.). This man must be ‘The Iron Bull.’ Having now laid eyes upon his behemoth, muscled form, I cannot imagine any other person bearing the moniker. Even as I think this, he spins on the spot while swinging his axe through three approaching attackers, _cleaving_ _them in half_ and filling the air with sprays of blood from the now surely dead (Or hopefully soon to be dead. I cannot bear to imagine the kind of pain one must feel upon having been cut in half.) corpses falling to the wet sand of the beach. Without missing a beat, he uses the momentum of the swing to fling himself forward into a charge at someone engaging in a sword duel with a figure who appears to be Krem, though I cannot be certain I’ve correctly identified him. The Hunvhen raises his axe from where it had been trailing in the wind at his side, arcing it through the air like a metal sun rising and falling in short order. The attacker’s armor never stood a chance. The weighty weapon cleaved straight through a weak point at the junction of two pieces of metal plating covering the attacker’s arm, which had been parried to the side a fraction of a moment prior by the man who (now that I’m closer) I am now certain is Krem. The arm detaches from its owner, an explosion of blood rocketing out of the remaining stump as the arm and the blade clutched in its hand fall to the sand now slicked with blood in addition to the rain. The newly one-armed person falls to the ground in shock.

My light red eyes widen as I see another enemy silently charging at the Hunvhen from behind, her target’s massive body turned to her advantage in blocking his approach from Krem’s sight and the roaring downpour masking what sound may have given away her imminent assault. Without pausing to think my actions through, I skid to a halt and thrust my hand forward, my magic already forming a barrier around the Hunvhen. As the attacking enemy swings her sword in a horizontal cut aimed at her target’s cloth covered legs, the Hunvhen hasn’t moved, so I brace myself to fend off the blow myself with my barrier, my will focused on making it as strong as armor.

 _Fenedhis_  ("Wolf dick")! I collapse to my knees with a light gasp as the blow lands, but my will manages to remain intact, the barrier holding firm enough to cause the blade to bounce back from the impact. In a flash, the Hunvhen whirls around, grabs his would-be-attacker by the head, and smashes the woman’s head against his own with a resounding headbutt.  The attacker is stunned, staggering backwards as her sword slips through numb fingers. The Hunvhen isn’t finished, however. He drops his greataxe, grasps her head in both hands, and in one swift movement breaks her neck. The sheer brutality of it causes me to lose my concentration for a moment as the corpse plops into the sand, and that brief loss of focus causes my barrier to dissipate with a crack, the magical energies disappearing back into the Beyond. The Hunvhen’s horned head glances down at his leg in confusion for a moment and then, as if this monstrous warrior could somehow trace the now gone barrier back to its source, looks up — up and straight at me.

The battle is over, a very small part of me announces even as the rest kindly responds that it couldn’t care less. I don’t know what it is about this Hunvhen, this man who is undoubtedly the only soul in this world who could properly lay claim to the name ‘The Iron Bull,’ that captivates me so, but from the moment his eyes find mine, I am enthralled. Not the bad kind that leads to me becoming a demon, mind you. No, this is… something different. I’ve never felt anything like it, so I’m not sure what to call it, but somehow, I think what I’m feeling is a good thing. This is, of course, exactly what Keeper always warned me about, what she trained me to push out of my mind. The moment you yield the slightest amount to a demon, your fate is sealed. And yet… Again, I somehow know that my eyes drinking in his chest’s every muscle and scar as he approaches isn’t a bad thing. That my shortness of breath as he strides toward me — his greataxe left behind in the bloody, wet sand — isn’t a bad thing. That the feeling between my legs—

That observation is enough to shock me into my normal state of mind. What my nethers are doing is technically natural for an elf my age, but they are _not_ natural for a female elf, and accordingly, something primal in my head _screams_ at me to squeeze my legs together before the evidence became undeniable. I _cannot_ allow the Inquisition to know my secret. Has everything been sunshine and happiness since I joined them? Of course not. I’ve never before been dragged into so many dangerous situations (Massive pride demons, tunnelvisioned templars, desperate mages, hordes of drakes, and a high dragon, just to name a few.), and yet, nobody in the Inquisition itself has realized yet that I’m something to be hated, to be detested, to be punished. I cannot bear for things to go back to the way they were with my clan, for these people who respect me (Though only the Creators know why, after they’ve seen what a wreck I am at this saving the world thing.) to realize precisely what their precious Herald of Andraste is.

“You okay there?” the Hunvhen asks in a deep, rumbling bass because _of course his voice is a deep, rumbling bass_ . Creators, who is this man that everything about him makes me feel… like this, whatever _this_ is, precisely?

“A-ah,” I stammer out because, again, _of course I do_. Honestly, was anybody expecting anything else? It’s been ‘ah’ this and ‘ah’ that since the explosion at the conclave, I swear.

He laughs at that, the sound loud and booming and making every fiber of my being tremble in a good way. Which is odd, I must point out. I’ve never trembled in a good way before, yet somehow (All this ‘somehow’ business is making me crazy, I swear. Is it too much to ask for some certainly about what is happening?), that’s precisely what I’m feeling at this moment. Abruptly, he reaches down, hooks his hands underneath my armpits, and hauls me up to my feet like I weigh absolutely nothing (Though to be fair, I probably _do_ weigh absolutely nothing for someone of his obvious strength. Have I mentioned how big and muscly he is? That seems like something worth mentioning… and thinking about again.), my staff left behind in the bloody sand. My legs, unsurprisingly, don’t quite feel up to supporting me, and I catch myself by clutching at his forearm. Creators, even together my hands can’t wrap around his bulk!

“Easy there,” he says, his deep voice still resonating through me in strange ways. “The battle’s over, so we have a moment to rest.”

He begins to shout orders to Krem and his men, and they quickly set to work. Some of them are gathering weapons and armor, whole or in pieces, for salvage, and others are… I turn away, my face practically planting itself in Hunvhen’s chest as I do my best to resist the urge to vomit. Some of his men are slitting the throats of the fallen enemy littering the bloody beach. I tremble (This time in a decidedly bad way.) as here and there I begin to hear, even through the noise of the stormy weather, gurgling sounds as enemies who had merely been knocked out breathe their last. It might be my imagination, and I dearly hope that is the case, but it’s utterly sickening nevertheless.

I think the Hunvhen senses how disturbed I am by the proceedings, since he abruptly distracts me, saying, “With the Inquisition, are you?”

“Y-yes,” I answer, immediately seizing onto the distraction, feeling a bit unclean at not stopping the death. Like my magic, I’ve always been more comfortable with healing and protecting, not this… brutality. “I’m Hamasha. And you must be ‘The Iron Bull,’ right?”

“Yeah,” he responds, chuckling. “The horns tend to give it away.”

That brings a weak smile to my lips, even as some small part of me can’t help but remember what’s going on all around me. “I’m afraid it _is_ somewhat obvious.”

We both laugh at that, and from behind me, I hear Cassandra’s voice say, “Your company is the Bull’s Chargers, yes?”

The two of them begin to discuss business, but even as they discuss the logistics of the Bull’s Chargers working on behalf of the Inquisition, I find myself unable to let go of Bull’s forearm. I tell myself that I’m still not feeling steady enough to stand on my own, but unsurprisingly, it’s rather difficult for me to slip a lie by myself. Knowing I’m lying from the start tends to do that, you know.

“So,” I hear Bull suddenly says after a time, bringing me out of my reverie. “You gonna hang onto me all day?”

“If you don’t mind,” I timidly say before my brain catches up with my mouth. I release his arm as both of my hands shoot up to cover my mouth, and my cheeks begin to flush scarlet. This is, of course, very obvious even in these weather conditions on account of my pale skin, and Cassandra quirks an eyebrow as Bull answers, “Eh, it’d make moving around a bit difficult, so I’ll pass.”

Thank you, Creators, for this man’s obliviousness, and please, please, _please_ grant me a distraction. It’s bad enough that Cassandra noticed the implications of what I said, but I might very well have died from embarrassment on the spot if Bull had as well. As if the Creators themselves had heard me plea and deigned it worth their time to grant it such a way as to make me immediately regret their intervention (I suspect they do this to keep themselves entertained. It would certainly explain a few things, such as my being… well, the way I am. Honestly, why couldn’t I have been born in a body that I can be comfortable in without needing to take herbal mixes regularly, without needing to hide parts of myself, without fearing what could happen if the people around me find out my secret?), the mighty and unmistakable roar of a high dragon pierces through the din of the stormy weather.

I wearily glance at Cassandra, who wears a look of grim determination; at Solas and Varric, who have just arrived and are glancing at each other with a knowing look; and at Bull, who has a look of crazed excitement dancing in his blackish brown eyes and a wide grin tugging at his lips.

\---

I am beginning to seriously second guess whatever warm feelings Bull’s presence previously invoked in me. When fighting a high dragon, the proper emotional responses are as follows: Resolve to protect innocent lives, like Cassandra. Determination to not be eaten, like Varric. Protecting the people in sight while desperately wishing to be doing anything other than fighting an accursed high dragon, like me. I mean, even general seriousness and occasional aloofness like Solas would do. _Nobody_ , however, should be _actively thrilled_ at the prospect of facing down such a force of nature. Nevertheless, that is the precise emotional response Bull is having to this very situation. Hence, I think reevaluation of whatever reaction I was having to him earlier is in order.

When he’s knocking away the dragon’s head, distracting it from breathing lightning on Cassandra, he shouldn’t be laughing. When he’s using the broad side of his greataxe to hammer a crossbow bolt sticking out of a vital point in the dragon’s flesh, he shouldn’t be crying out in excitement. When he’s swinging his greataxe into the beast’s neck, its steel coated in fire courtesy of Solas, he shouldn’t be grinning like a madman with a crazy glint in his eyes. When his arm’s being gouged by dragon claws and his body subsequently knocked back by a beat of the dragon’s wings, his body’s landing cushioned by my barrier even as I seal up his arm’s wound by knitting the flesh together, he shouldn’t…

Creators, he cast a look my way. It was very brief, his attention immediately thrown back into continuing his assault, but my ire is already dispelled. Second guessing or not, it seems that one glance from Bull is enough to drag me back in. Maybe my comparing his effect on me to that of a demon’s wasn’t as farfetched as I’d imagined. Honestly, just knowing that Bull is here fighting together with us (with _me_ ) is enough to make me feel worlds better than I did while fighting the high dragon in Redcliffe. This is not a feeling I should be having!

“Taarsidath-an halsaam!”

He’s charging forward again, his axe trailing through the wind just like it did earlier today, moments before he cut off a woman’s arm. I know brutality is coming and that I really oughtn’t be encouraging it, and yet as he plants his foot on a tall but flat rock and uses it to push off into a leaping jump towards the dragon’s head, I thrust my palm forward and coat his axe’s blade with ice, mimicking what Solas did earlier. As he slams the edge of his steel between the eyes of the dragon, his muscles tense as he puts all his strength into the colossal blow, I know the fight is over. They fall to the ground of the mountain where we found the dragon, and as Bull tosses himself into a sideways roll in order to dissipate his momentum without getting his horns stuck in the ground, the dragon’s head slams into the ground, Bull’s axe still firmly lodged in the dragon’s scaly hide.

The air is still crackling with something I can’t put a name to as Bull comes to a stop face down in a patch of grass. I rush over to him, a sense of dread in my gut when I see him twitching. I skid to a halt besides him, my staff tossed nearby as I collapse to my knees besides him and cry, “Bull! Are you okay?”

To my surprise, he pushes himself up to his knees and heartily answers with a maniacal grin, “I’m better than okay! Did you see that? Isn’t your heart pumping? Your blood racing?” I belatedly realize that he wasn’t twitching. No, Bull is _giggling_ — giggling like a madman trying to resist the urge to cackle.

I want to tell him, ‘No, of course I don’t feel any of that,’ but I can’t bear to. I can’t bear to rain (Ha! There’s enough rain already!) on his happiness, crazy though it is. Instead, I turn my attention to the minor cuts and bruises littering his body and slowly begin to trace my fingers over his wounds, healing them as I go. Magic isn’t simple. You can’t just wave your hand and make all of a person’s wounds vanish. You have to know they’re there. Big wounds like having an arm torn open by dragon claws can be seen and healed from a distance, but minor ones require the caster to get up close. Touching them helps direct the magic too. Plus, I get the added benefit of running my hands all over Bull’s body. I flush at that thought, and though I know he can see the redness of my cheeks, I stubbornly keep my will focused on healing his wounds.

It’s taken me a bit to figure out what I’m feeling, but I think I’ve got it pegged now. But if I’m correct, then what I don’t understand is _why_ I’m feeling this — this isalathe (“desire, infatuation”) for Bull. I’ve only got a few overhead conversations between the members of my clan to guide me, but I’m fairly confident that… _intimate_ urges like this are related to procreation. Ugh! This is so confusing! I mean, I’m _female_ , and he’s _male_ (At least, I’m fairly certain he is. I could ask, but Creators that would be so embarrassing, and it would undoubtedly make him suspect my secret, which I can’t allow to happen.), so… so isn’t it okay to desire him? All the couples in my clan involved one female and one male, but… I’m not like other female elves. So what does that mean? Is it still okay? Is it—

I squeak in surprise when, as I finish running my hands over the last of Bull’s scrapes, he pushes himself up onto his feet and tugs me into a one-armed hug, planting my face into his chest (Well, it’s really more his belly. Again, I’m not that tall.). “Thanks, Boss!” he jovially says before chuckling, causing a deep, rumbling sensation to resonate through his body and into my head. “I feel better already.”

The sensation makes my legs wobble and my blush intensify (Though those might both be attributed to our current positioning as well. Yeah, that seems likely.), but I manage to ask, “Wait, ‘Boss?’ How am I your boss?”

He finally releases me from his grasp (I’m warring with the urge to plaster myself against him again. Creators that would be embarrassing! If nothing else, I only just met him! As far as I know, nobody in the clan ever developed isalathe this quickly…), and he replies, “Eh, you never told me your name, and since I don’t want to be yet another person calling you ‘Herald,’ I figured I’d go with ‘Boss.’”

“But I’m not your boss!” I retort before jabbing a finger at Cassandra, who along with Varric and Solas has been watching our exchange with an odd look from nearby (Varric, in particular, is looking mischievous and knowing.). “She is!”

“Whatever you say, Boss,” he replies, a smirk playing across his lips.

Is he toying with me? How do I even respond to that? My mouth opens and closes a few times as I make failed attempts to respond before I ultimately settle for weakly muttering, “My name’s Hamasha.” I am not pouting. I’m the first of my clan. I’m dignified. … I am _not_ pouting!

He saunters over to the dead dragon, grips his greataxe, and pulls it free with a sickening (at least for me) squelch. “Whatever you say, Boss.”

For the first time in my life, I seriously consider smacking someone nearly twice my size who could probably snap me in half with the barest of efforts. Breathing deeply, I decide to take the high road (Or my version of it, at any rate.). In other words, I scoop up my staff and later, once we’ve begun to walk back to Scout Harding’s camp to notify them about the corpse and arrange to have it harvested for parts (At least the Outsiders have the decency to make an effort to use the parts for something instead of letting the potential go to waste.), I plant the bottom of my staff right in front of Bull’s foot as he goes to step forward. He stumbles but catches himself before looking straight at me with a quirked eyebrow. “Careful, Bull,” I say, my blush giving me away even as I try to fight it down and sound scolding. “I can only heal so many scrapes in one day.”

Thrown by my own daring, I’m completely caught off guard when he abruptly scoops me up with one arm and smoothly deposits me butt first onto his shoulder, causing me to yelp in consternation. “Ha! I like you already, Boss. Better keep you up here, where I can keep an eye on you.”

No, I am not furiously blushing. … Yeah, I’m not fooling anyone.

\---

After notifying Harding and her scouts about the dragon, we decide to take care of a local group called ‘The Blades of Hessarian.’ One of the scouts had previously located information about something called a ‘Mercy’s Crest’ which we could use to negotiate with them, so after scrounging up the materials to craft one, the five of us set off down the coast to search the area where the scouts suspect the Blades’ camp is. We fight a giant along the way (It seems Bull’s utterly crazy fascination with fighting dragons extends to other large creatures as well.), but before long we reach the camp. The Blades’ leader sets upon me right away, since I’m the one who ended up carrying the amulet, and challenges me to a duel. Bull, however, takes great pleasure in snatching the amulet from me and then thrashing their leader in what is possibly the most one-sided duel I have ever seen. As the duel ends, I realize that no one has ever defended me like that before (At least, I think that’s what Bull was doing. He might very well have just been itching for a fight.), and despite finding myself once again flushing, I very much enjoy the feeling of being protected.

Actually, ‘protected’ isn’t quite the right word, I don’t think. Rather… I feel cared for. Protection’s a part of it, but I think what I’m really enjoying is the feeling of someone else looking out for me. All my life, I’ve had to fend for myself. Keeper helped sometimes, but her help was always more supportive, more enabling than actually taking charge of the situation. Creators how’ve I’ve wished that someone else besides me was looking out for my safety, that somebody else could take charge, that I could just leave it in somebody’s else’s hands and still feel safe, that I could _just let go_.

With the battle over, Cassandra begins to negotiate the Blades working for the Inquisition as agents. But I’ve no eyes for her. I’m too caught up in this feeling of security, too caught up in _him_ . My legs begin to feel weak again, so I put some of my weight onto my staff for support. Bull notices. He notices because _of course he does_. Without a word, he scoops me up onto his shoulder again.

Am I getting in too deep? This can only end badly for me. It _always_ does. I was never a hunter for my clan, and yet my body is covered in scars. Each one of them is a story. A story of how I’m _wrong_ . How nobody could ever care for an _unnatural_ elf like me. Even if Bull shares my isalathe, even then… Surely he wouldn’t desire me once he found out my secret. Maybe if he decides to add to my scars, I’ll stop hoping that somebody could love me. Maybe… Maybe I could finally just give up living.

“Hey,” Bull mutters, his deep, rumbling bass pulling me out of my dark thoughts, as my four companions move to leave. “Stop thinking so much up there.”

I weakly smile, not that Bull can see that from my perch on his shoulder. “I’ll try.” That’s all I can do.

\---

I do my best to keep my eyes focused on Warden Blackwall and Cassandra as they talk and not on the corpses littering the area. This is made even more difficult than usual thanks to Sera, who is currently poking this or that body with her boots like dead bodies are some kind of game. The fight hadn’t been going well for Blackwall and the three men he’d ‘conscripted,’ but once Cassandra, Varric, Solas, Sera, Bull, and I arrived (Vivienne once again chose to stay at Haven when she heard where we were going. Unlike last time, however, I’m fairly certain I know why she doesn’t want to come. As a noted proponent of having the Shem circles restored, she undoubtedly isn’t thrilled by the prospect of meeting with the leader of the rebel mages.), it swiftly turned into a one-sided slaughter.

“You really don’t do well with violence, do you Boss?” Bull asks from nearby, where he’s leaning against the shaded trunk of a tree.

“No,” I simply answer, my eyes still carefully trained on Cassandra and Blackwall.

“And yet,” Solas interjects, his grayish-blue eyes undoubtedly flickering towards me (I refuse to look.), “you have enough scars to match any battle-hardened warrior. Why is that?”

I wince. Why must he be so perceptive? Or is it really obvious, and he’s the only person bold enough to ask about my scars? No… No, that doesn’t sound right. If that were the case, then Sera, who has been extremely blunt in all my interactions with her while traveling, would have asked me about them long before now.

Before I can scrounge up a reply, Varric comes to my rescue. “Have you considered that she might not want to talk about it for a reason, Chuckles?”

Solas says nothing more, and I make a mental note to do something nice for my friend (Creators… That’s still a concept I’ve yet to grow accustomed to!) later. I’ll have to ask if he’d like anything. I’m not exactly crafty, but maybe somebody at Haven would do a favor for the ‘Herald of Andraste’ (Surely, the title has to be good for _something_ other than making me feel uncomfortable?).

Before long, we all seven of us — Blackwall is apparently joining us as well — set off towards Redcliffe village to meet with the rebel mages and their leader Fiona. We encounter rifts along the way of course, which gives Sera and Blackwall their first opportunity to see my mark in action. Blackwall simply remarks that it’s good _someone_ can close them, and Sera pretty much says the same thing with more ‘glow-y’ and ‘Herald-y’ thrown in. The path now clear, we make good time into Redcliffe proper where one of the Inquisition’s scouts informs us that the tavern has been arranged for negotiation but that no one had been expecting us to come.

“But we spoke with Fiona in Orlais,” Cassandra protests in confusion as an elven mage arrives on behalf of the rebel mages. “Surely she notified someone…?”

“My apologies,” the new arrival says, “but Magister Alexius is now in charge and wasn’t expecting your arrival. He will be here shortly, and you may meet with Fiona in the meantime, if you wish.”

Everyone in our party is rightfully suspicious of what exactly is happening here, but eventually, Cassandra says, “I’m not certain how this came to be, but we are already here. We should proceed regardless.” And with that said, our band of travelers make our way to the prepared tavern. The conversation that follows is confusing and tense to say the least, as Fiona explains that she has indentured herself and the rest of the rebel mages to Alexius and Alexius himself finally appears.

After sending his son to fetch the materials necessary for drafting a contract, Alexius suddenly turns to me. “And you… You are the _survivor_ , yes? The ‘Herald of Andraste?’” he says, his dark eyes gleaming with interest.

“Yes…” I murmur in discomfort, unconsciously taking a step backwards towards Bull.

“Hm…” he hums to himself, his eyes creepily examining me. “And how did that happen, I wonder?”

“Ah,” I unhelpfully answer.

Thankfully, Varric comes to the rescue for the second time that day, interjecting, “Well, if you really want to find out, then surely you’d be willing to lend some mages to help us investigate and close the breach. They’re all related, after all.”

“Which brings us to the negotiations, Alexius,” Cassandra adds, drawing his attention to her once more. “Shall we continue?”

The two of them move to a table and begin to discuss the particulars of how many mages would be necessary and for how long, but they don’t get far into the conversation before Alexius’ son returns only to stumble towards the table. Cassandra leaps up from her chair and thankfully catches him in time, but Alexius promptly ends the negotiations by hauling his son off to Redcliffe castle and ordering his newly indentured mages to follow and help.

In the span of a minute, the seven of us are left in the tavern alone, the silence of the empty building deafening. “Well,” Varric drawls, “that went well.”

“All this is just shifty!” Sera exclaims, shuddering. “Why don’t we meet with the templars instead?”

I’m actually beginning to agree with her. Well, not _entirely_ , but kind of. While I’m not the best at knowing whether someone’s lying to me, Fiona genuinely seemed to be telling the truth when she said she had never meet us before, even though we knew we had. I mean, that’s the very definition of shifty. At least, I think so. Listening to (and occasionally joining) the conversations between my companions while traveling has been helping me expand my vocabulary, but ‘shifty’ wasn’t used in… well, any of those conversations, I don’t think. Hm. Probably better that I not agree aloud then. I make a fool of myself often enough that I really don’t need to risk doing it when I _know_ I might for once. I mean, how embarrassing would it be i—

“Hey, Boss. You coming or what?” Bull shouts over his shoulder from the door, the rest of our group nowhere in sight.

Fenedhis. “Wait, what? What are we doing? I, ah, kind of…”

He chuckles as he waves me over. “Got lost in your thoughts again, eh? We’re going to the Chantry. Note warning of danger and all that.”

Well. That seems legit? Whatever. If Bull says it’s okay, then I’ll roll with it.

\---

Really? A demon rift in the middle of a Chantry? I mean, I know they technically appear just about anywhere, but a rift in the middle of a building is just… unfair or, or _something_ . I mean, it’s bad enough that all the ones around Redcliffe village seem to be bending _time itself_ . I mean really. _Really._ We’re in the real world, not the Beyond. If we were seeing moments from the past while in the Beyond, then _that_ I could understand. That’s basically all Solas does. Fall asleep somewhere (Preferably after setting wards because nobody likes waking up, you know, dead.) and immerse himself in the echoes of the past. It’s actually really, really fascinating, if I’m being honest. Even more so given that he’s the only person, elf or outsider, to have ever done this at the level he describes. Anyway, point is: Time bending in the real world. Decidedly not a good thing.

This point is driven home as I watch Varric send a crossbow bolt rocketing towards a hunger demon only to have it slow dramatically before striking home. The demon is affected, but obviously not as much as it would have been, and in a sudden burst of speed (no doubt the work of a time bend) it rushes my hairy chested friend. Thankfully, I summon a barrier around him in time to deflect the worst of the blow. Thank the Creators that protective and healing magic doesn’t need to actually travel from me to my target. Magic like fire, ice, lightning, and arcane offensive spells often travel out from the caster to the target, and in this setting, that could put a mage at the same disadvantage as the rest of our traveling band. My spells, however, summon energy from the Beyond at the point of impact, so there’s no travel time whatsoever.

Why do I mention this? Because Solas, the mysterious Shem mage who was already here in the chantry when we arrived, and I are all working double time to ensure the tide of the battle doesn’t take a turn for the worse. In particular, _I’m_ the working nearly triple time, since Solas and the other mage are clearly more versed with offensive than defensive spells. Sure, they know one or two — what mage doesn’t? — but that’s not quite enough right now.

I watch wide eyed as a terror demon knocks back Cassandra and tears into her, the air around them tinging red as her blood spurts freely. After a moment, the demon’s done, and Cassandra is a bloody, unconscious heap on the verge of death. Well, that just won’t do, will it? I drop my staff, freeing up my off hand for the complicated spell I’m about to weave. I’ve never done this before, but I’ve no time for doubt. If I don’t cast this quickly enough, then she’ll truly pass on to the Beyond. Cassandra scares me, but that doesn’t mean that I want her dead.

I grasp at the air in front of me with both hands, or at least that’s what the layman would see. In truth, I’m reaching out through the Beyond to Cassandra’s soul, which I can feel is only tethered to her body by a thread. With a twist and flick of my wrists, I gather ambient magic around her soul and firmly press the bundle down into her. Now the toughest but shortest part: Convincing her soul’s tether to entirely reform. Her body initially doesn’t know what to do with the magic, but with a quick, gentle push of coercion, I convince it embrace the magic and heal the connection between flesh and what makes Cassandra herself.

Now, if you’re asking yourself precisely _why_ Cassandra’s soul had begun to break free, then… Well, I’ve got nothing witty to say. I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it? The soul flees the body when the latter approaches the brink of death. That’s why a healer can only wait so long before returning someone from the brink of death. If we wait too long, then the soul departs for the Beyond. We are _not gods_ ; we _cannot_ bring a soul back from the Beyond. A necromancer can hasten the soul's departure in order to have a clean (Well, as clean as a dead body _can_ be, anyway.) slate to work with, but that’s just the opposite of what I’m doing right now.

Oh. What I’m doing right now. Right. I should, you know, finish the last step of what I’m doing. Cassandra’s soul tether safely restored, I lift my upturned hands into air as I heal the wounds that I can see. Convincing a soul to return to and stay with a body won’t do much good if I don’t heal the wounds. The body’s proximity to death would just convince the soul to restart its journey to the Beyond. As I lift my hands, Cassandra’s body lifts into the air in a swirl of green healing magic, and I feel her consciousness return. It’s tentative from the blood loss, but Cassandra is a battle-hardened warrior; she can fight off the lethargy of blood loss. Spelling the blood in the area back into her wouldn’t be wise. It’s too stained with outside materials, so she would get an awful infection within the day. Instead, I elect for the more mana intensive option, willing some of my reserves into her and using it to replicate the blood already in her now healed veins.

All in all, my revival spell takes a handful of seconds. Hey, it’s complicated magic! I think I’ve made that point by now. _Anyway_ , what I’m getting at is this: A ‘handful of seconds’ can be a really long time in the midst of a heated battle, and time can cost you a _lot_ when you’re fighting enemies who can quite literally bend time. My eyes widen in fear as I notice a rage demon cross the last of the distance between me and wherever it had been moments earlier, its fiery hands reaching out to strangle the life from me. That makes tactical sense. I mean, I’m obviously not big on fighting, violence, and all of that business, but even I can recognize the simple logic of ‘if we want people to stay dead, kill the person who can stop them from dying.’ Really, it’s a wonder they didn’t make a move against me earlier in the fight.

It’s too late to dodge. I close my eyes, my body tense but my mind silently accepting of the end. Maybe Solas and the other mage don’t know how to revive people? Maybe… Maybe I’ll actually stay dead. Creators, it’s an awful thought, but I can’t help thinking it. I can never return to my clan. I don’t ‘know’ this, but I do _know_ it. I could always return, but I would never be accepted. The clan only ever endured my presence because of Keeper, but after being free of me for the past month plus whatever time it would take me to find my clan… Surely they wouldn’t welcome my return after being free of my wrongness for that long. And the Inquisition! They accept me now, but it’s only a matter of time. Sooner or later, someone will notice, and the cycle will begin again. I don’t know if I could bear it a second time. I want to say that I could… that I could at least do it in order to save the world (Only a fool would think the Breach anything other than an imminent threat to the world.), but I don’t think I could. Creators, why? I’ve only ever wanted to be myself and use your gift of magic to heal and protect! Why then does everybody in this world hate me… call me unnatural… want to hurt me? Is this why I wasn’t ready for my vallaslin (“blood writing”)? Because I can’t understand why I have to hurt? Because I can’t understand why I’m _wrong_?

An awful scream of pain and indignity escapes the rage demon, piercing straight through me to my core. What? What just happened? My eyes open at the precise moment I feel a firm, strong hand grasp me and bodily haul me upwards onto a muscled shoulder. I could cry. In fact, I’m fairly confident that is what’s totally happening right now. Either that or I got blood on my cheeks when I wasn't looking. Point is, my cheeks are wet. “Bull?” I tearfully ask, my voice watery and filled with a strange mix of hope and dread.

“The hell are you doin’, Boss?” he asks bitingly as he swings his greataxe at an approaching hunger demon. The swing is slowed by the heavy magic around the rift, but I still have to throw an arm around his neck to hold myself steady.

“I… ah, that is…” I begin, struggling for a plausible excuse. The truth would raise too many questions, would set in motion the chain of events that played out before my mind’s eye only moments prior. In the corner of my vision, I see a terror demon rocket out the ground beneath Sera, knocking her to the wooden floor of the Chantry. Blessedly, the demon doesn’t move as quickly as the one that assaulted Cassandra earlier, so the mage whose name I still don’t know gets a barrier over her quick enough to stave off the worst damage, which I immediately begin to heal.

“Listen,” Bull says, cutting off what likely would have been a totally unbelievable lie, “save the bullshit. It’s pretty obvious you’re an awful liar anyway.” Ouch. I mean, he’s totally correct, but still. “Just remember: All this fighting won’t mean shit if you aren’t around to close the portal.”

Oh. _Oh._ Well now I feel just _so much better_ . Sigh. I should have known… He doesn’t care about _me_ ; he cares about what I can _do_. “Right,” I flatly reply. Even though I can’t see his eyes right now, I can totally feel the ‘we will talk about this later’ look he gives me before parrying an attacking rage demon’s fist and counterattacking.

Nearly ten minutes later, the flow of demons abates long enough for me to use my mark to seal the rift. The unknown mage immediately rounds on me, inquisitively asking, “ _Fascinating_! How does that work, exactly?” My answer is apparently to slow in coming, since half a breath later he chuckles before continuing. “You don’t even know, do you? You just wiggle your fingers, and boom! Rift closes.”

I blink at that. “It’s not… It’s mo— wait, what does ‘wiggle’ mean?” Cassandra, Solas, Varric, Sera, and Bull all chuckle at that, but Blackwall and the Shem mage both look bewildered. Brilliant. My poor vocabulary comes back to haunt me again. “It’s not funny,” I quietly pout, earning a pat on the leg from Bull, whose shoulder I’m still sitting on (It’s comfy, okay?).

Blessedly, the Shem mage takes it all in stride. “This,” he says while demonstrating, “is wiggling your hand.”

I stare for a moment before blurting out, “Why would… Do Outsiders really think it necessary to distinguish between ‘moving’ and ‘wiggling’ your fingers? That seems like an absurdly unnecessary word.” Another round of chuckles, this time including Blackwall and Dorian. Outsiders are so weird.

“Dorian of House Pavus,” the Shem mage introduces himself suddenly, his lips curling into a roguish smile. “Most recently of Minrathous. How do you do?”

Bull frowns at that. “Better watch ourselves. The pretty ones are always the worst.”

“Suspicious friends you have here,” Dorian quips, looking quite unaffected by Bull’s remark. “Magister Alexius was once my mentor, so my assistance should be valuable — as I’m sure you can imagine.”

My eyebrows rise at that. “Wait. If he’s your mentor, then why would you help us?” I ask.

“ _Was_ my mentor,” he stresses. “And I’m helping you because Alexius is getting in dangerous things. Let’s start with Alexius claiming the allegiance of the mage rebels out from under you. As if by magic, yes? Which is exactly right. To reach Redcliffe before the Inquisition, Alexius distorted time itself.”

Sera practically hisses at that, her eyes darting around wildly as if to make sure the world around us isn’t moving backwards through time as we speak, and I feel Bull’s muscles tense underneath me. Blackwall has a disbelieving look on his face but says nothing. Cassandra, Solas, and Varric share a glance (This strikes me as odd coming from the normally joking around Varric. Maybe he has experience with strange magic?), their eyes narrowed in consideration, before Solas speaks up. “That sounds incredibly dangerous, if true.” I nod, affirming my silent agreement.

“More,” Dorian drawls. “Remember that rift we just sealed and how time was distorting around it? If Alexius continues to use this magic, I suspect more of them will begin to spread until he tears a hole in time itself. The hole in the sky is more than enough, thanks.”

“You’re asking us to take a lot on faith,” Cassandra carefully replies.

Dorian looks affronted at that. “I know what I’m talking about. I helped develop this magic. When I was still his apprentice, it was pure theory. Alexius could never get it to work. So the question is what’s changed? And moreover, why is he bothering with bending time in order to get a few hundred lackeys?”

“It’s her,” a voice from behind us says, catching me off guard and causing me to squeak in alarm. Thankfully, everyone seems much more interested in the new arrival, Alexius’ son. He and Dorian then jointly explain about a group of Tevinter supremacists (The Venatori, I think they are called.) and speculate about what they’re after.

As the discussion winds down, Alexius’ strange obsession with me is mentioned, and Varric drawls with a grin, “All that for her? And here she didn’t get Alexius anything.”

Bull and Solas chuckle at that, and Dorian smirks before turning his chocolate brown eyes to me and quipping back, “Send him a fruit basket. Everyone loves those.”

Aaaaand I’m confused again. “Wait, a ‘fruit basket?’ Why would you only use a basket for storing fruit? Surely it can be used for other things as well?”

“You are just about the oddest person I’ve ever met,” Dorian replies with a strange smile as nearly everyone else fights to stifle their chuckles. I blush but say nothing. I mean, why would I at this point? I’ve made a fool of myself, like, three times already in this single conversation. I can only blush in embarrassment so much. “Anyway,” Dorian continues, flashing each of us a meaningful look. “I can’t stay in Redcliffe without Alexius learning I’m here, so I’ll make myself scarce. But if you want to deal with him, then I want to be there.” He gives me one last meaningful look that I can’t even begin to decipher before concluding, “I’ll be in touch.”

In short order, our band begins the long journey back to Haven, and I know I really ought to think so more about everything that’s gone on that day, but honestly, it’s just a lot to work through. As I snuggle into the back of the horse I’m riding for a nap (It’s really rather straightforward, if you’re not a crazy Outsider and actually build up trust with the stead. Honestly.), I flick my light red eyes over to Bull. A myriad of emotions race through me, as countless as the scars covering his muscled, gray body — isalathe, doubt, warm protection, horror, determination, depression… Yeah, I’m way too tired to even begin to process all of that. As I slip into unconsciousness, my last thought is a wish to be loved for more than what I can do.


	4. In Hushed Whispers, Pt 2 (AKA Time Travel is Terrifying and the Sweet Nectar of Camaraderie is Not)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hamasha unexpectedly finds herself in the future, where she takes on the role of a leader and makes a new friend through a strange mix of fear and the sweet nectar of camaraderie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Dragon Age: Inquisition or any other BioWare intellectual property. Aqun-Athlok is a fan-based work and not sold for profit.
> 
> ***WARNING: PAST ABUSE is heavily hinted at and at some points outright mentioned. Discussion of SUICIDAL THOUGHTS occurs. Reader be advised.
> 
> ***SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for any Dragon Age game — they're going to happen. You’ve been warned.

_In short order, our band begins the long journey back to Haven, and though I know I really ought to think so more about everything that’s gone on that day, but honestly, it’s just a lot to work through. As I snuggle into the back of the horse I’m riding for a nap (It’s really rather straightforward, if you’re not a crazy Outsider and actually build up trust with the stead. Honestly.), I flick my light red eyes over to Bull. A myriad of emotions race through me, as countless as the scars covering his muscled, gray body_ _— isalathe, doubt, warm protection, horror, determination, depression… Yeah, I’m way too tired to even begin to process all of that. As I slip into unconsciousness, my last thought is a wish to be loved for more than what I can do._

\---

 **Aqun-Athlok**  
By: Eva Grimm  
 _Chapter Four: In Hushed Whispers, Pt 2 (AKA Time Travel is Terrifying and the Sweet Nectar of Camaraderie is Not)_

_“You’re not a freak.”_

_“You know nothing about me either, Dorian.”_

\---

I awake with a start and loudly squeak at the feeling of something poking me sharply in the side. This ordinarily wouldn’t be a problem, but ordinarily, I don’t fall asleep while riding a horse. I wince, squeezing my eyes tight as I brace for impact with the ground, but when all I feel is a soft shaking accompanied by unrestrained laughter, I tentatively open one eye to take a peek at what’s happening. This is followed by a few moments of blinking as I stare at the surrounding buildings and people walking by (Most of them casting looks of barely disguised or of open interest my way.) before I mutter aloud, “Did everything get shorter?”

“No,” the deep rumbly bass of Bull replies. “You just got higher.”

I look down. Sure enough, I’m on Bull’s shoulder. Again. Honestly, it’s rather strange how often I end up here. “What happened? Last I remember, we were at a campsite?”

“You feel asleep on the back of your horse again and didn’t wake up when we arrived. Somebody needed to carry your sleepy ass back to a real bed, and I figured I’d use it as an excuse to have that talk we’ve been delaying.”

I wince again. My cabin (Varric finally explained to me that it really is called a ‘cabin’ and not a ‘Room.’ I’m still confused about the difference, but that’s a problem for another time.) looms ahead, and I desperately hope it will suddenly burst into flames, or explode, or, or… or, well, pretty much _anything_ that will delay discussing why I let a rage demon nearly kill me in Redcliffe. As Bull opens the decidedly not on fire door, I sigh. The Creators have apparently decided against unleashing catastrophe on the cabin, or otherwise they’re waiting to start the show once we’re inside. Yeah, it seems unlikely to me too.

“So,” he says after plopping me onto my bed. “What happened back in the Chantry? And I’ll know if you’re bullshittin’ me, so don’t waste my time.”

“I didn’t think I could dodge in time,” I say, hoping a half truth will satisfy him enough to end his interrogation of me.

“That ain’t the full truth,” he immediately replies. Fenedhis (“Wolf dick”). He’s perceptive. “I saw the look in your eyes, Boss. You think I don’t know it when I see it?” My mouth is agape and my light red eyes wide. I can’t think of anything to say to that, and Bull seems to know it, so he continues. “Listen, we all have shit we want to forget about sometimes, pasts we want to escape. I know that feeling, and I know that look because I saw it in my own reflection often enough in the past. Point is, killin’ yourself is the coward’s way out. If you need to forget shit, then do what you gotta, but then get back to makin’ use of yourself.”

Oh. Right… I’m the ‘Herald of Andraste,’ the blessed savior sent by the Outsiders’ Maker to save the world from all its ills. This is _not_ what I need right now. “Fine,” I bite out, much more harshly than I ever would have imagined I could. I cast my eyes down to the floor, the shadows washing over them. “Your point’s made. Please leave.”

He pauses for a moment, as though he’s debating saying something more, but he leaves without a word. I keep my eyes trained on the floor the whole time, unwilling to look at him. I don’t know if he really did think about killing himself in the past or if he’s just lying to make a point, but even if he did… Maybe having a greater purpose works for him, but it doesn’t work for me. Even if the Inquisition does manage to seal the Breach, that won’t lessen the burden I bear.

With a sigh, I set about stripping off my gear and slipping into my bed while still wearing a pair of pants. Consciousness is overrated.

\---

As Varric, Bull, and I step into the audience chamber of Redcliffe castle, I cannot help the fear that begins to rise in my gut. Our plan is good (It really is.), but playing bait doesn’t sit well with me. On the one hand, just about everything I’ve done with the Inquisition since the Conclave has been one dangerous situation after the other (Have I mentioned the massive pride demon and the _two_ high dragons?), but none of those quite compare to a Shem magister who can bend time. The sheer implications of messing with time are scary enough, and that’s even without having seen it in action! Yes, a high dragon is dangerous, but in a relatively predictable way, so I’d prefer that over crazy Shem magisters any day (Creators, did I just jinx myself? I have a feeling I did…).

One of the Shemlen ( _The steward_ , I remind myself.) is approaching, so I take a deep breath to steel myself then say the words I rehearsed all the way here. “Announce us.” Well, that wasn’t quite as domineering as Bull would have been, but to be honest, I’m fairly certain I’d never be able to match him in that way.

The steward pauses at that, eyes Varric and Bull, then replies, “Magister Alexius’ invitation was for Mistress Lavellan alone. (Behind me I hear Varric quietly mutter, “Hamasha Lavellan,” before falling silent again.) The rest will wait here.”

Oh, good! I actually practiced the answer to this in advance. “Where they go, I go,” I add, my tone slipping a bit from steely to hopeful to steely again. Blessedly, Bull comes to my rescue. I hear him take a heavy step forward behind me, and I though I’m not looking his way (Bull said that would ruin the effect we’re going for.), I can practically see the baleful glare he’s directing at the steward with his one eye. After another moment of silence, the Steward slightly inclines his head in acquiescence, and he leads us up onto the dais where Alexius, his son (What was his name again? Helix? Something like that. I wasn’t really paying attention to him earlier, to be honest.), and Fiona are waiting for us, the magister seated in a daunting wooden throne covered in metal spikes.

After we’re announced, Alexius climbs to his feet. “It is good to see you again, my friend.” Friend? Yeah… No. Just no. “And your associates too, of course,” he adds as an afterthought. “I’m sure we can reach an agreement that works for both of our parties.”

The fear is clawing at me in my gut again, but I know I need to buy Leliana’s people time to get into position. I open my mouth to say something, but Fiona cuts in then, approaching as she says, “Are we mages to have no say in our fate?”

“Fiona,” Alexius answers with clear disdain, “you would not have placed your people in my care if you did not trust me with their lives.”

Before I can help myself, I mutter, “Oh, you simply _ooze_ trust.” My eyes widen at my own daring, and behind me, I hear a low, rumbly chuckle. Apparently Bull approves.

Alexius, however, evidently doesn’t if his sneer is anything to go by. As if to reaffirm that he’s the one with the power here, he returns to the wooden throne and perches himself upon it once more. “The Inquisition needs mages to close the Breach. I have them. What will the Inquisition offer in exchange?”

Good. Another question I actually prepared for. “Surely you recognize the threat of the Breach,” I wheedle. “You should spare us aid.”

“No,” he immediately replies, his sneer growing more twisted. “I think not. This is a _trade_ , not charity. Now off—”

“She knows everything, Father,” his son says, butting into the conversation.

The magister turns affronted black eyes to his son, muttering, “Felix, what have you done?”

My light red eyes flick between the two men, and I elect to stay silent. I never knew my parents (I was passed along from another clan at a very young age when they realized I was a mage. There can only be so many of us in any given clan, after all.), but I know better than to butt in where I don’t need to be. Besides, the whole point of the plan is to buy time (Heh. I just realized: We’re buying time in order to stop a guy who can bend time.), so some family drama is a good thing right now. Well, not a _good_ as a concept, but rather… oh, whatever.

It turns out it’s not meant to be, however, since Alexius ignores his son in favor of returning his dark eyes to me. “You think you can come into my stronghold with your stolen mark, a gift you don’t even understand, and think you’re in control? You’re nothing but a mistake!”

Woah. Wait a second. Does this Shem know what the mark on my hand is? I don’t care if I’m in the middle of a dangerous situation; that’s pivotal information! I mean, is he going to spill all its secrets just because I asked? No, of course not. That’d be sooo convenient, but he’s not going to do it. Still, if he lets slip even the smallest bit of information, then I can at least start looking into what the hell my mark is. It’d be nice to know in advance whether or not it’s going to turn me into a demon, a rift, or some other horror I can’t begin to think of. Well… Actually, maybe I _wouldn’t_ want to know that? At least, I certainly wouldn’t if I couldn’t avoid it. Knowing exactly how I’m going to die but being unable to avoid it isn’t exactly at the top of my list of things I want to know.

“Stolen?” I ask before it occurs to me that I probably could’ve gotten more information if I’d asked a different question. Ah well. It’s not like I’ve done this before.

“Yes, stolen from the Elder One in His moment of triumph!” Alexius replies with a sneer.

‘Elder one?’ Who or what is the Elder One? But seriously, do you see what I mean? That answer wasn’t exactly helpful regarding figuring out what the mark is.

“Father, listen to yourself,” the man’s son says, interjecting himself again. “Do you know what you sound like?”

“He sounds exactly like the sort of villainous cliché everyone expects us to be,” Dorian says as he emerges from behind a pillar. He snuck in together with Leliana’s people, so if he’s here, then they must be in place. I breathe a shaky sigh of relief as the fear clawing at my insides begins to abate. I can’t believe we managed to pull this off. I mean, can you _imagine_ all the things that could’ve gone wrong? First of all, magisters aren’t exactly known for being gentle as baby hallas. He wanted me to come here alone, so I’m frankly surprised he didn’t arrange for someone to leap out of a bloody bush and stab me in the back a couple of times (At least, I would imagine you’d want to do it multiple times. What if you hit them the wrong way with the first stab? They could kill you for your troubles before you could even begin to think, _You know, I really should have gone ahead and stabbed this person more than once, just for safety’s sake_ , you know?) while I was walking up the path to Redcliffe Castle. Then again, I _wasn’t_ alone and, moreover, I was specifically being ‘not alone’ with Bull, who is pretty scary (Have I mentioned his muscles? Creators, I could just… just… I don’t even _know_ on those muscles!), so maybe my would-be assassin aborted their mission when the thought occurred to them that Bull would probably rip their head off for their trouble if they stabbed me? But still! That’s just an assassin in a bush. What if he had used _time magic_ to… Oh, right. Fenedhis!

I tune back into the world at the precise moment Alexius holds an amulet up in the palm of his hand and begins to cast what is doubtlessly his time bending spell.

“No!” Dorian shouts as he flings a spell of his own at Alexius.

He’s too late. Alexius’ magic is already half formed by the time Dorian’s strikes it, and the interaction of the two spells causes the half-formed time spell to activate early, causing a rift to open in the midst of us all. Without stopping to think through what I’m doing, I twist around to face where Bull and Varric are watching the rift in horror, and I release an arcane wave, knocking the two of them away. Bull’s blackish brown eye locks on to me just before I feel the rift drag me in, and the world dissolves into black as a disorienting feeling overcomes me. A fraction of a moment later, the world snaps back into existence, and in my disorientation I promptly lose my footing. The last thing I see before my head hits the wall is a partially flooded, stone-walled cell and two hooded figures with weapons approaching me. Fenedhis.

\---

“Hamasha,” someone harshly whispers into my ear.

I groan and grab at my dripping wet hair as pain lances through my head. My eyes are clenched shut from the pain, but I can feel that I’m for some reason sitting waist deep in water. “Ahn garem? Ahnsul ar irmes?” (“What happened? Why am I wet?”)

“Alas, my grasp of Elvhen is limited to asking where the bathroom is, and I’m afraid it requires a fair bit of pantomiming,” the same voice replies, this time in a tone of obvious amusement.

I blink my eyes a few times to try and clear away the spots in my vision, then I turn my weary gaze towards the speaker and find Dorian crouched in water within arm’s length. “Sorry,” I mutter. “I was asking what happened and why I’m wet.” I glance down at the water. “Though I think I know the answer to my second question.”

“Yes, well, the short version is that we’ve been displaced both in place and, more importantly, in time. You landed a bit more roughly than I did, hitting your head on the wall and falling unconscious. Thankfully you more or less slumped down onto your butt instead of falling under water because I was a tad bit busy killing some Venatori at the time.” He gives me a strange look that I can’t begin to decipher before he begins to speak again. “So seeing as we’re Maker knows where and when, I propose that we get moving and figure out the answer to those questions as soon as possible and to figure out how to get back… if we can.”

I sigh as he rises to his feet and offers me a helping hand up. “You’re the boss.”

Dorian quirks an eyebrow. “And here I thought _you_ were the boss, oh mighty Herald of Andraste,” he quips, his humorous tone back in full force.

I shake my head at that. Honestly, how can he think that I should be in charge after I literally got lost in my head in the middle of an incredibly dangerous confrontation? “Don’t let the title fool you. I’m a healer, not a leader.”

“You say that, yet when while we were preparing to sneak in to the castle, Leliana mentioned to me that it was _you_ who made the final decision to seek the mages’ help to close the Breach.”

“I just happened to be the last person to vote,” I say uncomfortably.

“And yet they respected your decision instead of continuing to debate the matter,” Dorian easily counters. “Besides, fighters are the ones who ignited the war between mages and templars, and I suspect this ‘Elder One’ isn’t much different in that regard. Somebody who doesn’t like to fight, who only cares about helping others… I think a healer is _precisely_ the kind of leader we need right now.”

That… is a good point, actually. Unsure of how to reply, I pick myself up off the floor and out of the water, groaning again as my headache reminds me that stone walls are, in fact, harder than my head and that I should therefore not smash my head against a stone wall again.

As if he can hear my thoughts, Dorian remarks with a grin, “Do try to not hit your head on the wall again. I hear it’s bad for one’s health.”

I roll my eyes. I hadn’t thought I needed a human mage version of Varric, but apparently the Creators thought otherwise. “Let’s go.”

\---

It turns out that ‘where’ we are is in the middle of a nightmare. At least, that’s the best description I can think of for this place. There’s red lyrium everywhere, and Varric’s told me enough about what that crap does to put me on edge from being unable to find a single room without huge growths of it on the walls, in the middle of the floor, or pretty much wherever. On top of that, this place is crawling with Ventori, and they, like red lyrium, are really bad for one’s health.

“We’re clearly in the middle of a castle,” Dorian remarks as I carefully close a wound on his arm from a glancing blow courtesy of the now dead Venatori on the floor, “and given that we were in Redcliffe Castle before the rift swallowed us, it seems likely that we were merely transported into the lower depths of the castle.

“Makes sense to me,” I mutter distractedly as I finish up. “We still don’t know _when_ we are though, and frankly, that seems more important right now.”

“I agree.” Dorian’s eyes flick towards a nearby stairwell leading downwards. “We were in a cell before, and we took a stairwell up to get here, so perhaps there are some prisoners here who could answer that question for us?”

In short order, we begin to descend into the castle, and sure enough, we find ourselves in a cell block where a strange voice is lightly singing a song about bottles of beer that I’m unfamiliar with. I glance into the cell the singing is coming from and my breath hitches.

“Bull?”

The singing stops, and a red eye finds mine. I’m suddenly torn between wanting this to truly be Bull and wanting this to be a demon trying to trick me or a mage’s illusion meant to trick me or, or… or _anything_ but my Bull.

“Boss?” the Hunvhen (“Qunari”) prisoner weakly replies, his voice like Bull’s yet not. “You’re alive still?”

My heart sinks. ‘Still?’ “How long was I gone?” I whisper as I clutch at the bars, fearing the answer.

“You vanished a year ago when that fucking mage cast his spell. Without you, we couldn’t stop him.” He pushes himself up onto his feet, steading himself on the wall.

Creators, what have they done to him? He’s grown so thin that his chest harness and pants now hang loosely enough that they’ll soon be in danger of falling off. His gray skin has begun to grow paler and bears deep, horrible scars that weren’t there when I last saw him. And his eye hasn’t just turned red; it’s now the exact same shade as red lyrium and is glowing faintly.

“‘Him’ meaning Alexius?” Dorian asks, jumping into the conversation as I hastily search the wall nearby for the key to Bull’s cell, grab it, and unlock the door.

“No, that bastard wasn’t the problem,” Bull grunts as he takes a step out. “It was the Elder One. After you vanished, he assassinated the Empress of Orlais and invaded the South with a huge ass demon army. Without you, we couldn’t close the rifts anymore, and more importantly, losing the Herald of Andraste crippled the Inquisition’s troops’ morale. We didn’t stand a chance.”

No… No, no, no… Is this real? “So if we can’t get back… no, even if we _do_ get back and I then die, then all of those people…” Feeling faint, I grab Dorian’s arm for support. “Tuelanen sathan ama'em… (“Creators please protect me.”) I… I don’t know if I can do this.”

That was apparently not the right thing to say. “So you’ll just give up and let him fuck over the world then?” Bull angrily demands in that awful, tainted voice, his red lyrium colored eye flashing dangerously. “Do you think I don’t remember what you tried to do in that chantry? Are you just going to kill yourself so you can have it easy?”

“‘Have it _easy_ ?!’” I snarl back, something snapping inside of me at his words. “Is that who you think I am? Someone who just takes the _easy_ way out?” I abandon my grip on Dorian’s arm as the anger coursing through me dispels my earlier wooziness, and I cross the small distance between Bull and myself, stepping deeper into the shadows of the cellblock. “You know nothing about me, _Iron Bull_ !” I throw my staff aside, thrust my right arm out, grip the bottom of my long sleeve with my left hand, and yank back the sleeve to reveal numerous scars of varying intensity. “Do you see these? Remember how I don’t like to talk about them, how I don’t like violence? Every last one of them I have was given to me by someone in my clan because I’m different from them! The people who are supposed to be my family cut me over, and over, and _over_ because they think I’m some kind of freak of nature! And you know what? It would have been so _easy_ to do what they wanted… It would have been so _easy_ to just give in… But I didn’t do what was _easy_ ! I did what was _RIGHT_!!”

My words echo off of the walls over and over again as I glare with deadly intensity at the clearly caught off guard Bull. Like the last of my repeating words begin to fade away into silence, my anger begins to die away leaving only sadness and a burning sensation in my eyes as I try to hold back my tears. I take a deep, shuddering breath. “Don’t confuse being too weak to go on with wanting to take the easy way out.”

The moment seems to stretch on for an hour as I just stand there, my eyes now averted away from the shadow of the man who inspired isalathe (“desire, infatuation”) in my heart, but eventually it passes when I turn away to retrieve my staff.

“You’re not a freak.”

My fingers curl numbly around my staff before I straighten up and turn my gaze to Dorian’s chocolate brown eyes. “You know nothing about me either, Dorian,” I whisper before I turn and begin to walk towards the door. “One of the people we killed upstairs had a battleaxe, Bull. Let’s go stop this future from happening.”

\---

The awkwardness of mine and Bull’s confrontation lingers over us so much so that once we find Varric, who despite clearly having undergone the same horrors as Bull, and explain to him what’s happened thus far, my hairy chested friend predictably attempts to diffuse the tension by making witty remarks.

“You know, if you want to take a bath, Hamasha, you really shouldn’t use the water on the floor of a partially flooded cell. Who knows who was tortured there just last week? Rotting flesh water can’t possibly be good for your hair.”

That earns a weak smile from me. “I’ll be certain to wait until the water has your seal of approval next time, Varric.”

Nevertheless, I’m still feeling really out of sorts. Understandably so, I daresay, given the nightmare future, horrific consequences if we fail to get back to our time, the argument with Bull, and — yes, I’ll admit it — the sogginess of armor (I really hope that rotting flesh wasn’t in that water… Thanks for putting that notion in my head, Varric.). Oh, and I can’t forget the hordes of Venatori waiting around every corner and in every room who just can’t wait to kill us and offer up our corpses (Wonderful. Now I can’t stop thinking in terms of dead bodies.) to their Elder One. Really, this entire scenario is just pure awful. The smell’s bad too, on account of how much Venatori blood is now caked all over my armor, staff, and face.

“If Leliana is here like Fiona said, would she be near the throne room?” I ask before cringing as the image of Fiona in her cell with red lyrium growing out of her comes to mind. Like I said, this is all just pure awful.

“Well we haven’t seen her in any of the cells,” Dorian answers as we climb the stairs out of the cellblock where Varric was housed. “We’ll just have to be thorough as we make our way to Alexius.”

Our progress is unfortunately slow, but it’s understandable. We have Bull and Varric fighting with us now, but they’re nowhere near full strength. Bull has a weapon he’s familiar with, even if he can’t wield it as well as he ordinarily would given his present weakness, but Varric only has a bow and arrow, and we were lucky enough to find that. It’s not as if the Venatori would have just left Bianca lying conveniently near Varric’s cell, after all. He thankfully learned how to use a bow and arrow when he was a child before he got Bianca, but that was decades ago. Nevertheless, we _do_ make progress, and eventually, we find Leliana… in the torture chambers.

Creators… That’s precisely what this nightmare needed — to get worse. I can’t see the parts of her body covered in armor, but if they’re anything like her face… The skin of her face clings tightly to the bone, her hollowed out cheeks and pale, blood caked skin give her the air of an emaciated corpse reanimated by a necromancer. But her eyes… Like Cassandra, I have always found her intimidating, and how could I not? She’s the Inquisition’s spymaster (Which, according to Varric, means she’s the person who gathers all the information necessary for us to make our plans and arranges for dirty tasks to be handled that others would rather not, or could not, do.), but she’s apparently a battle-hardened warrior who fought against the last Blight _and won_. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I mean, she didn’t do it single-handedly, but she was apparently part of the traveling band that served directly under the ‘Hero of Ferelden,’ the Grey Warden who struck down the Archdemon and lived to tell the tale. That’s really, really impressive. So yeah, I’m intimidated by her, and because she’s always in full armor that covers everything but her face, that intimidation is linked to her face. This Leliana of the future has a different face, but her eyes are the same, a piercing pale blue that cuts right through anyone she gazes upon, revealing to her all their darkest secrets. Seeing those same eyes in this horrific face… I almost wish she was suffering from exposure to red lyrium as well.

Once she’s free and armed with weapons again, our progress nearly doubles. Even though her body is practically a shambling corpse (Fenedhis. I know Varric meant well, but it’s really not healthy to be so focused on dead bodies.), she fights like a crazed, immensely powerful demon. It’s one thing to hear the tales of her days felling darkspawn with arrows, but it’s something else altogether to see her decimating the Venatori we come across as we make our way through the castle. Still, I can only imagine how much pain she must be in, so I try to coax new life into her body while we hunt down the red lyrium shards needed to unlock the door of the throne room, but the damage is too extensive and too old for me to do anything here. I suspect that even if I could repair her body at this point, it would likely take months if not years of daily work on my part, and that’s something we simply don’t have the time for.

Dorian holds the last red lyrium shard with a piece of cloth as buffer over the last slot in the door to the throne room. “Are we ready to fight?” he asks, his eyes passing over everyone before moving back to me and waiting.

I glance at Bull, Varric, and Leliana and am surprised to find that all three of them are looking to me. Why? I… I just don’t understand. Why are they looking to me right now? Is it because Cassandra’s not here? But then why aren’t they looking to Bull? He’s the one who leads a company of soldiers (Well, led, seeing as they’re undoubtedly dead in this future.), so they _should_ be looking to him. I’m not a strategist. I’m not even a fighter! I just heal people. I’m just Hama—

Oh. Oh, I get it. They don’t want me. They don’t want Hamasha. They want the Herald of Andraste without whom the world is definitely doomed to destruction. Fenedhis. Is that all I can ever be to other people? Something I’m not? My clan wants me to be… to be a _man_ , and I never will be. The Inquisition wants me to be their savior, and I’ll never be that either.

“Hamasha.”

I release a weary sigh. “What, Dorian?”

The kempt mage steps away from the door, crosses the distance between us, and whispers into my ear at a volume our three companions cannot hear, “If someone like you were in charge, do you think that leader would allow a little girl to be harmed because others thought she should be a boy?”

Time seems to freeze all around me, and I’m suddenly finding it very hard to breathe. Did he just…? Does he _know_ ?! But how?! “I-I-I… W-what did you s-say?” I whisper back, my voice deathly quiet. Wait, if he _does_ know, then why isn’t he telling the others or hurting me? That’s what everyone in the clan did…

He pulls his face back from its position by my ear and moves it so it’s look straight at my own, his chocolate brown eyes boring into my wide, light red eyes with such intensity that I want to look away but simultaneously cannot. “You are not a freak,” he says in a tone that brooks no argument, this time at a volume loud enough for everyone to hear. “You are the leader we need right now. Rise to the occasion.”

I have known magic for nearly my entire life, immersed in studying it and all of its incredible varieties under Keeper’s tutelage for as long as I can remember, felt its touch as it coursed through me with every spell I have ever cast. I have experience all of that, but never before have I experienced magic like this: A magic of otherwise ordinary words that when spoken rouse my spirit, sooth my anxieties, and fill me with the sense that, yes, I _can_ be a leader — I _can_ be accepted for whom I am.

I feel the corner of my lips twitch up into the faintest of smiles as a warm feeling begins to suffuse my body. “Dorian… I… _Thank you_.”

His own lips curl into a charming, roguish smile before he quips back, “Yes, I’m truly amazing. Feel free to shout my praises from the rooftops once we’re back in our own time.”

You know, I’m pretty certain I liked Dorian well enough, even before this little conversation, but now… I honestly _might_ shout his praises i— no, _when_ we get back. We _have_ to get back, have to stop this future from happening. Now feeling much more determined, I glance at Bull, Varric, and Leliana each in turn (And I even manage to not flinch at the horribly impatient look Leliana’s giving Dorian and me.), and I firmly state, “Sorry for the delay. Let’s go get that amulet.”

Dorian sweeps over to the door and slips the last red lyrium shard into place, opening the way. We find Alexius waiting for us, his back turned as he stares into one of those strange, small bonfires Shemlen place in the wall. Surprisingly, he is alone but for a Shem crouched nearby who is clearly suffering from the Blight. My eyes dart back and forth, examining the room as we approach him, and though I see nothing, I’ll be the first to admit that one of my companions would be more likely to spot a trap than me. Leliana would definitely notice a trap, so… I turn my head to where Leliana was moments ago, but she’s not there.

I turn to check if she’s just standing with the others, but not only is she not, I’m startled to find that Bull and Varric stopped walking towards Alexius a few paces back. Even Dorian is behind me, albeit only slightly, a mere step forward from being directly at my side. Well then. Apparently being the leader means you get to be first in the line of first (Yay?). Granted, it’s not like we put the matter of who’s leader to a vote or anything. I mean, I clearly have Dorian’s vote of approval, but what about everyone else? I distinctly remember chatting with Bull about who should be the Inquisition’s Inquisitor (A word that, incidentally, confuses me in the same way that the difference between ‘Cabin’ and ‘Room’ confuses me. Elvhen has many words that can each have multiple meanings, but we generally don’t have multiple words that all mean the _same_ thing. Don’t Outsiders find that sort of thing confusing?) shortly after he and his Chargers arrived in Haven, and he said a leader should be a person who makes the tough choices and live with the consequences. I haven’t done that, have I?

 _“Hamasha, I must insist that you be present for our planning. You are a critical voice of leadership.”_ But surely Cassandra only said that because I’m the ‘Herald of Andraste…’

 _“If you really want my opinion,” I hesitantly say, “I would… prefer the mages.”_ Okay, so I cast a tie-breaking vote, but the conseque— well actually, I guess I had a chance to bow out and approach the templars instead, but I stayed the course and was willing to be the bait for our infiltration of the castle…

 _“But I’m not your boss! She is!” “Whatever you say, Boss.”_ _“My name’s Hamasha.” “Whatever you say, Boss.”_ I thought he was just joking around…

_“You are the leader we need right now. Rise to the occasion.”_

You know what? I _will_. “Alexius,” I say, my voice tentative. Well that tone won’t do. A take a deep breathe, centering breath then continue in a firmer tone. “Look at what you’ve done. You know we can’t allow this future to happen.”

“And here you are,” he replies in a strange tone. “Finally.” He half turns his head away from the flames, glancing backwards over his shoulder at me. “I knew you would appear again. Not that it would be now, but I knew I hadn’t destroyed you. My final failure.”

“Was it worth it?” Dorian asks, half stepping forward. “Everything you did to the world? To yourself?”

“It doesn’t matter now. All we can do is wait for the end.”

“No,” I interject, the fervor in my voice surprising me. “This can be undone if you give Dorian the amulet.”

Before Alexius can reply, Leliana bursts forward from the shadows cast by one of the pillars and within the span of an instant, she grabs the Blight-touched Shem up from his crouched position and places a dagger against his throat.

“Felix!” the magister cries, whirling around in surprise, his hand outstretched in a pleading gesture.

“That’s _Felix_ ?” Dorian says in horror. “Maker’s breath, Alexius, _what have you done_?”

“He would have died, Dorian! I _saved_ him!” Alexius responds before turning his attention back to Leliania. “Please, don’t hurt my son. I’ll do anything you ask.”

Anything? Then maybe we can avoid bloodshed altogether. “Hand over the amulet, and we’ll let him go,” I promise.

“Let him go, and I swear you’ll get what you want!”

Yes! No one needs to die! “Let him go, Leliana.”

She sneers at me, and horror washes over me as I realize what’s about to happen. “I want the world back,” she declares, her voice dark with anger, before slitting her hostage’s throat.

According to Bull, leaders make hard decisions and live with the consequences. I just decided to hand over Felix’s safely in exchange for the amulet, but one of my companions cut said Shem’s throat. Decision and consequence. The only question left is _how_ I’ll live with the consequences. The easy choice now would be to stand by Leliana and probably need to kill Alexius to get the amulet. The _right_ choice, however… would be fulfilling my promise to him.

 _“It would have been so_ easy _to just give in… But I didn’t do what was_ easy _!”_

“No…” Alexius breathes out in shock and dismay at the sight of his fallen son.

 _“I did what was_ RIGHT _!!”_

Tapping into the Beyond, I blink forward to where Leliana and the fallen Felix are. I can’t afford to have her interfere with what I’m about to do, so I blast her into a pillar with a wave of arcane energy and then form a wall of ice between us. Knowing that won’t buy me much time, I promptly whirl around to face Felix, drop my staff, and grasp his soul with both hands. As I gather ambient energy around it and flick it down into his Blight devastated body, I hear Leliana scream in anger. I quickly try to coax the body’s soul tether to reform, but it’s slow, much too slow, no doubt because of the Blight.

“Stop her!” I cry, which is all I can manage to do without breaking my concentration, my eyes closed so I can focus on the feel of Felix’s soul and his body through the Beyond.

I hear the ice forming behind me followed by another cry of fury from Leliana together with the unmistakable sound of ice shattering. Almost there… Something whizzes through the air past me as I hear the first heavy steps of Bull beginning to charge forward. _Almost there_ ! I hear a grunt of exertion from Bull, something heavy landing behind me, and then a simultaneously blunt _thwack_. The tether’s whole! Not strong by any means (Did I mention that he’s afflicted with the Blight? Kind of wreaks havoc on life expectancy.), but whole.

As I heal the cut on Felix’s neck and replicate the blood in his veins, metal clashes against metal behind me, and spells and an arrow whistle past. The repair of the body now done, I whirl around to help deal with Leliana. Bull is between her and me, swinging his battleaxe in a horizontal sweep, but in a lightning fast burst of speed, she jumps, pushes off of the battleaxe’s blade passing underneath, flips over Bull’s head, and lands at an angle affording her a clear shot at Felix. How many times has she seen a mage resurrect someone over the years? A battle-hardened fighter like her surely knows the spell is complete, and if she’s already killed him once…

Bull spins on his heel to maintain momentum, his previous attack seamlessly becoming a whirlwind slash, but Leliana has already thrown her dagger towards Felix, the flying steel no doubt aimed so precisely the impact will be another killing blow. After casting an ice wall and resurrection spell in rapid succession, I don’t have enough mana to form a spell, and so I do the only thing I can do. I’m not fleet of foot, but it takes little effort to cross the short distance necessary to put myself into the line of fire. A fraction of a moment before the dagger’s blade strikes me in my chest right over my heart (Fenedhis. Just my luck. I jump in front of a flying dagger, and it’s of course going to hit me in the heart.), a barrier forms around me. I’m knocked off my feet from the force of the blow (I’m not certain if that’s a testament to Leliana’s skill in dealing death or how incredibly unlucky I am, to be honest.) at the same moment Bull’s attack slams into her armor, cutting halfway through her before the force of his attack dissipates. Leliana and I both fall to the ground, our heads striking the stone floor, but her impact is at a different angle, causing a loud snap upon impact.

Varric, Dorian, and even Bull all shout, “ _Hamasha_!” as I cry out in pain and clutch at my head and chest in agony, and I immediately hear three sets of feet charging towards me and the sound of metal clattering against stone.

Bull reaches me in an instant, having been close by, and with evident relief says, “The wound’s shallow. She didn’t get your heart,” before he pushes the hand I have on my chest out of the way and puts pressure on the wound with his much stronger hands.

“Thank the Creators,” I weakly whisper to myself as Varric and Dorian skid to a halt beside us.

Before anyone can say anything else, Felix abruptly gasps, drawing everyone’s attention.

“Felix!” Alexius cries before falling to his knees besides the now whimpering, barely human form of his son. “You’re alive!”

“Of course he is,” I mutter, a bit of indignation slipping into my words. “What did you _think_ I was doing?”

The magister says nothing for a few moments before eventually replying, “I… don’t understand… Why did you do this?” Though they say nothing, I can feel the eyes of Bull, Varric, and Dorian on me as they too wait to hear my answer.

“I promised to return him to you,” I reply with as much solemnity I can muster (Which, to be honest, isn’t a lot given my position on the floor and the pain in my head and chest). I open my eyes and turn my gaze to Bull’s one eye. “He was innocent… It would have been easier to just leave him dead, but that wasn’t the _right_ thing to do.”

I feel Bull’s fingers clench against my chest a bit at my words, and I see his eye widen ever so slightly, but he says nothing.

“I… _Thank you_ ,” Alexius manages to say, the words sounding strange coming from his lips.

“You can thank us,” I reply, “by giving Dorian the amulet and showing him how to use it, so we can undo this nightmare.”

For a moment, the magister looks at me as if I’m crazy for asking, but then a heavy sigh escapes him as he slowly grabs a pouch from his waist and holds it out to a surprised Dorian. “All that I fought for, all that I betrayed, and what have I wrought?” he whispers aloud to no one in particular, his dark eyes focused on something none of us can see. “Ruin and death. Nothing else.” His eyes shift towards his old apprentice without quite looking at him before his gaze finally seems to focus on this reality once more and turns to find my own eyes. “I have tried to undo the past so many times and always failed. But if you manage it, if you truly can go back… I doubt anyone can stop the Elder One, but if anyone can… it is _you_.”

Over the next minute, I manage to block out my headache enough to heal my chest and the damage to my head (Blessedly dispelling my headache as well.), and Dorian and Alexius begin to work out the details of how to send us back in time. Not once while I was healing myself did Bull stop putting pressure on my chest wound. Does that mean something? If Bull hadn’t been here and… let’s say Blackwall was here, would he have done the same? If he wouldn’t have… then what does that say about Bull? I still need to talk to Dorian in private (Like, in my cabin with wards set up private!), but unless I seriously misunderstood him earlier… I think he knows the truth about me and isn’t bothered. That’s… I mean, just… Wow. If that’s true, then just _wow_ . You have to understand: _Everybody_ who has learned the truth about me has called me unnatural, said I was meant to be… be a _man_ , and whenever I refused to listen to them and conform to their idea of who I should be, they would hurt me. Not everyone would do it directly. I think I’ve mentioned how often I had to replace my staff because it was vandalized in one way or another, but other times people would steal my food portions, would tear my sleeping mat, or would cut my hair while I sleep (Progressing in my studies enough to learn how to set wards is the only reason my hair is as long as it is now.). Others… _would_ hurt me directly. Most of the scars on my body are courtesy of Mithra’s daggers and Alerion’s fists and boots.

Ugh, I’ve gotten off topic again. The question I was driving at was this: If _Dorian_ truly thinks it’s okay that I’m not like other female elves… then could Bull honestly return my isalathe? Creators, just the thought is enough to make my whole body tingle with warmth! I know I shouldn’t get my hopes up, that it will only hurt me more in the end when it doesn’t come true, but I just can’t help it!

“I’m fine now,” I whisper, giving Bull a tremulous smile. “May I get up?”

“Good,” he simply replies before removing his blood-stained hands from my chest, causing me to unconsciously sigh from the loss of his touch.

As I begin to push myself up off the floor, the castle abruptly shakes so violently that I promptly fall back down. Worse yet, the roar of some terrible beast fills the air so fully it might well have been standing above me instead of on the other side of countless castle walls. Maybe I jinxed myself with all this thinking about matters that will almost certainly result in something bad happening to me? That would make sense. Also, we’re in a waking nightmare of a future, so _something_ had to go wrong sooner or later. Point is, regardless of the reason, I _really_ should have expected bad things to happen.

“The Elder One is here,” Alexius hoarsely intones in resignation.

“I know how to send us back,” Dorian says, determination in his voice as he turns to me, the pendant glowing in his hand, “but Alexius never charged the pendant after using it last time, so I’ll need a few minutes to get it ready.”

Bull and Varric share a brief look at that before giving each other a small nod of understanding. Bull scoops up the battleaxe he dropped on the floor when he rushed to my side and rises to his feet. “We’ll hold the main door, but it’s not going to be pretty without our spymaster,” he rumbles as he casts a glance towards where Leliana fell earlier. I refuse to look. It hurts enough knowing that she’s dead because of a decision I made, especially since no one had to die. My first decision as a leader, and someone’s already dead because of it. Yipee. “They _will_ break through, so you better get back to the past before then.”

I want to stop them, to tell them they don’t have to do this, to tell them that Dorian will get the pendant charged in time without them needing to throw away their lives. But I _don’t_ know he can get the pendant ready before this ‘Elder One’ gets here, and if Dorian and I can’t get back to the past, then so many people will die that I cannot even begin to wrap my mind around such numbers. And on top of it all… I know this Bull and Varric will die soon regardless. I felt it every time I healed them on our way up through this castle, a sickness caused by red lyrium that is so strong it will inevitably cause them both to die.

“We will,” I whisper, my voice breaking as tears begin to stream freely from my eyes. _Thank you. I’m sorry you have to die_. The words don’t leave my lips, my voice unable to say them. I just have to hope my tears can convey my gratitude and my sorrow. They leave without a word and without glancing back. I continue to cry.

“Hamasha,” I hear Dorian say some time later with no small amount of desperation. I’m not sure how long I have been standing here crying, my eyes upon the door my friend and the object of my isalathe departed through, but I wrench my gaze to him because I know I must. The kempt Tevinter is holding a glowing pendant in one hand and is reaching towards me with the other. It’s time then. I dash towards him, and behind me, the great doors to the hall burst open with a tremendous bang. As I climb the steps up to where Dorian stands, the battle cries of demons and men fill the air before being diminished as the unmistakable sound of ice fills the air between us and them.

“Go now! Stop me from allowing this future!” Alexius cries.

I reach Dorian as the portal opens, and the world around us dissolves into black.

\---

The world snaps back into place, revealing the throne room instead of the cell where we arrived in the future.

Still, present-day Alexius’ shock upon our reappearance and Dorian’s declaration that, “You’ll have to do better than _that_ ,” kind of makes up for the incongruence of our two passages through time. You have to admit that our grand entrance is really… What would Bull call it? ‘Bamash’ No, it’s… ‘Badass?’ Yes, that’s it! Our grand entrance is really _badass_.

To my surprise, Alexius promptly falls to his knees and slumps back onto his heels in obvious acceptance of his loss. I understand the future Alexius’ reluctance to fight after helping create that horrific future, but I totally thought this one would be flinging fireballs at us the moment we got back. Then again, he _did_ play his trump card right at the start only to have it fail, so… Actually yeah, this makes plenty of sense.

I know I need to address the Tevinter mage at my feet, but before that… My eyes scan the room and a small sigh of relief escapes me when I find that Bull, Varric, and Leliana are whole and well. I had figured they would be, but after everything we experienced in the future (Incidentally, I am _never_ telling Leliana about attacking her or, Creators forbid, Bull basically hacking her in half. I doubt she’d seek revenge for something that technically didn’t happen to her, but after seeing how incredibly deadly she can be firsthand, I’m not going to take that chance.), but I still had to check with my own eyes.

Now back to the task at hand. “Give up,” I say, turning my eyes back to Alexius, looking down at him. I try to make my eyes steely, like I imagine Bull’s might be if he were in my place, but all I can manage is a sort of unwavering blankness with hints of pity. Something I’ll have to work on later, I guess. I wonder if Varric can find me a mirror to practice with?

The magister releases a heavy, weary sigh, his dark eyes flickering with reflected light from the nearby fire. “You’ve won. There is no point extending this charade.” Slowly, he turns his gaze to his son, and he murmurs, “Felix…”

The man kneels beside him, replying, “It’s going to be all right, Father.”

“You’ll die.”

“Everyone dies.”

Nothing more is said between the two as they rise together and allow themselves to be placed in the custody of Leliana’s men. The urge to say something along the lines of ‘Finally finished!’ or ‘Now we can go home’ or ‘It seems we came out on top this _time_ ’ (Ooooh, I _like_ that one! I’d definitely get a chuckle out of Varric and maybe even Bull!), but that seems like a good way to jinx us, so I manage to hold my tongue.

It turns out, I needn’t have bothered. Dorian does it anyway. “Well, I’m glad that’s over!” the kempt mage says with relish mere moments before a horde of armed guards march into the room and take up positions by the pillars. “Or not.”

“Fenedhis,” I softly murmur as I see a pair of Shemlen nobles (In other words, two Shemlen dressed in perfectly ridiculous attire.), one man and one woman, approaching.

Apparently, these two are ‘majesties,’ though from what I’ve during my time with the Inquisition, I’m going to guess that ‘majesties’ is a title I’m unfamiliar with (Outsiders have ‘titles’ like Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel Lavellan does, but the protocol for using them varies so widely that I’m entirely confident that I will never understand them all.). A discussion begins to unfold between the two Shemlen and Fiona, and it seems the Shemlen aren’t thrilled that the rebel mages took over Redcliffe Castle and threw people out of their homes (I didn’t realize the latter had happened at all, to be honest.). Also, on a side note, it appears the Shemlen are Queen Anora and King Alistair (Thankfully, I’m familiar with the words ‘queen’ and ‘king’ and can deduce who is who now.), so I’m no longer in the dark about who the Shemlen are (Yay!).

“But… We have hundreds who need protection!” Fiona says in despair as the conversation winds down, the apparent decision being that the rebel mages are being kicked out of Ferelden. “Where will we go!”

Oooh, perfect chance to bring up the whole ‘so we came here for a reason.’ “Ah,” I interject (Some habits, even if recently acquired, die hard it would seem.) “About that.” The Shemlen and Fiona are all now staring at me. I’d say it’s unnerving, but admittedly, I’ve had a crazy enough day that pretty much nothing is fazing me at this point. “We need mages to help close the breach,” I continue, waving my left hand while I make it glow for extra effect.

Fiona gives me a wary look, but that wouldn’t faze me even if the early craziness hadn’t happened. I’m pretty use to other elves looking at me in a similar fashion. “And what would be the terms of this arrangement.”

“Hopefully better than what Alexius gave you,” Dorian interjects. His chocolate brown eyes find mine. “The Inquisition _is_ better than that, yes?”

Oh goody, and here I thought I was done leadering for the day. Sigh. Dorian and future Bull and Varric accepted me as a leader, but Dorian’s the only one of that group here, and he isn’t even formally a part of the Inquisition. Bull and Varric are part of it, but to be honest, I suppose I’m _technically_ further up in the hierarchy than either of them Inquisition-wise. It’s my decision whether I like it or not, it would seem.

“I’ve known a lot of mages,” Varric says, giving his opinion. “They can be loyal friends if you let them. Friends who make bad decisions, but still. Loyal.” Well yeah, I kind of knew that, Varric. You and I are literally an example of that. Silly dwarf.

Bull remains silent, his eye just fixed on me. Somehow that makes the choice harder rather than easier.

_“Rise to the occasion.”_

My light red eyes turn back to Fiona, and I consider her for a few moments in thought. There’s only one way I can answer and be able to live with myself while still keeping the Inquisition’s interests at heart. Eventually, I slowly declare (I’d die of embarrassment if I messed up speaking in the Outsider’s tongue right now.), “You are our conditional allies. The rebel mages have made horrible mistakes that will _not_ be allowed to happen again. You deserve freedom, but if you betray our trust, I will _happily_ allow the commander of our forces, an ex-templar by the way, to do whatever he thinks is necessary to protect us.”

\---

A handful of hours’ mounted ride later, we start to set up camp early for the night, so Dorian and I can get some extra rest after our day’s ordeal (Just because _I_ can sleep in a saddle doesn’t mean _Dorian_ can.). Word of the mages’ coming as well as an update for the War Council have already been sent ahead by Leliana (I have no idea how she can get news to and fro so quickly, but considering how quickly her people reached the Storm Coast before us when we were first heading out that way, I’m happy to just let her continue working her own brand of magic.), so we’re in no rush. Varric offers to try his hand at hunting some wildlife if I’d prefer some fresh food (Bless him. Underneath all of his cunning and wittiness, he’s got a kind heart.), but I decline, saying rations will work just fine. I’m not sure I could stand the thought of killing wildlife without then using every part of them, and if I’m being honest, we probably won’t have the time for that in the long run. We’ve had a handful of short breaks at Haven since I first joined the Inquisition, but beyond that, we’ve pretty much been hopping all around Thedas. I can sleep in a saddle, but I can’t tan leather, craft armor, or carve bone in one (Actually, I can’t do either of those things, in the first place. My clan’s master crafter always did that.).

The four of us (Leliana has long since gone off to do Creators only know whatever it is that spymasters do when they aren’t infiltrating castles to assassinate Tevinter mages.) settle down with our food get a fire started. Not long after the flames have sprung up, Bull speaks up. “That was an interesting choice you made back there. Most people would have been completely against the mages having their freedom or otherwise completely in favor of it. Some people might even look unfavorably on you for taking the middle road.”

“That sounds about right,” I softly reply, entirely too weary from the day’s events and greatly looking forward to some sleep, “but I imagine most of those people are stupid.” A terrifying thought abruptly strikes me then, and I whip my head around to face Bull, my currently unbound hair (Who would leave their hair in the same style all the time? That sounds _dreadfully_ boring.) flying about me with the motion. “Ah. I, ah, mean no offense if you th—”

All three of my companions laugh at that (No doubt because of the assuredly horrified look on my face at the moment.), and Bull’s rumbly chuckle sets me at ease. Good. I didn’t offend him. That would have been… Well, I suppose it doesn’t really matter what it _would_ have been, seeing as it isn’t.

“People who unconditionally support mages like they can do no wrong don’t sit well with me,” Bull replies after the laughter dies down, his blackish brown eye fixed on the crackling fire, “but that doesn’t mean I dislike mages.” I swear his eye flicks over to me for a brief moment, but it passes so quickly that I’m honestly not sure if I imagined it or not.

“If I didn’t know better,” Dorian drawls, “I’d say _you_ are the one taking the middle road with that statement.”

Bull snorts at that, simply responding, “You’ve gotta accept the hard facts is all I’m saying. Would you fall asleep next to a dwarf known for murdering people in their sleep without making sure you’ll be safe? Hell no you wouldn’t. Being firmly on the side of ‘take reasonable precautions in the face of danger’ isn’t taking a middle road. It’s being _smart_.”

That’s… actually a good point, really. It really helps put the matter in perspective when you’re looking at the situation from the perspective of the person not being persecuted. We mages still deserve freedom in general, but if you’re running around killing people… even I have to admit that can’t be allowed to continue. I only hope that being treated as allies instead of fugitives will inspire the rebel mages to not be complete idiots and start resorting to blood magic every time they encounter a hardship.

Eventually, Dorian and I leave Bull and Varric to enjoy some nighttime spirits (The alcohol, not magical, variety. I suspect that distinction might be necessary after the craziness of this day.) and head over towards the tents. Once we’re a short distance away, I take a fortifying deep breath and reach out and touch his arm to get his attention.

“Hm?” he simply and quietly replies, his chocolate brown eyes inquisitive as he turns to face me. “Did you want to speak about something? Whatever about?

“Ah,” I reply, my courage faltering at that. I had figured… _Surely_ he knows what I want to talk to him about? Creators, this is going to be even more awkward if I have to remind hi—

“I’m just messing with you,” he replies with a chuckle. “It’s a little bit too easy, honestly, but I suppose that as a particularly reclusive Dalish elf in a world full of Outsiders you’re still feeling like a bit of a fish out of water, yes?”

“Ah.” Huh. It’s really not taking me long to feel like everything’s normal again, which is particularly surprising after being flung a year into a gruesome future only to make it back after an ally becomes an enemy and an enemy a friend. You’d honestly think it would take, I don’t know, at least a few more days. That seems like the kind of experience that would be scarring and traumatic, after all. Maybe the fact that I’ve spent most of my life being traumatized by my Clan has dulled me to it all or something. Fenedhis, I’m a healer of bodies not minds! Eventually, I manage to reply, “I, uh, wanted to talk about the scenario you mentioned before…”

_“If someone like you were in charge, do you think that leader would allow a little girl to be harmed because others thought she should be a boy?”_

“Forgive me. My memory must be slipping,” he quips back. It’s darker over by the tents, but I’m almost certain he’s _smirking_ at me. “What was that scenario again?”

“Forget it,” I awkwardly mumble, my cheeks burning with humiliation as I turn on my heel to stalk towards my tent. “It wasn’t important anyway.”

“I only have the barest of suspicions,” he says, causing me to freeze in place after a single step, my breath catching in my chest, “and that is only because I’ve met someone like you before.”

“L-like me how?” I whisper, the words barely managing to escape my lips. My muscles are refusing to move, content to let my body become the most lifelike statute ever made.

“Maevaris Tilani,” he replies in a non-answer. “She’s a magister back home and, unless I’m sorely mistaken, she is your friend Varric’s cousin by marriage. Her secret isn’t widely known, but being a very _public_ pariah like me does carry with it certain benefits in that regard.”

Wait, what? I whirl around in surprise, my eyes wide and briefly checking whether Bull and Varric were listening (Doubtful, since Varric is laughing as Bull sings a rousing rendition of the same ‘bottles of beer’ song his future-self had been singing. Incidentally, hearing that song is making me think of my brief argument with Bull in the future, which is really not helping me calm down.), before I plead, “Please stop speaking in riddles, Dorian. I have a difficult enough time speaking your language, and it’s only made worse by the sheer terror I’m feeling right now.”

His expression grows serious at that, the smirk from earlier vanishing in an instant. “My apologies. You speak well enough that it’s easy to forget this isn’t your native tongue. I… never intended to scare you.”

His remorse certainly sounds genuine, and for the brief time I’ve known him, he has always spoken so bluntly that I can’t help but believe he’s telling me the truth now. “Apology accepted,” I softly murmur, the strain still very evident in my voice (In case you hadn’t realized it yet, this is a really, really, _really_ stressful topic for me. Just putting that out there.). “Please… please tell me what you think we’re talking about.” I’m not going to name it right out when there’s still a chance (Yeah, it’s slim, but it’s still there!) he might not know my secret.

Dorian’s hand glows for a moment before he flicks the ball of light down to the ground, causing the sound around us to vanish into nothingness. “A brief ward should suffice for now,” he explains before continuing. “I believe you were born with a male body but you present yourself as female because you know that you are actually female.”

It was one thing to hear him imply he knew my secret, but hearing him confirm it causes my knees to buckle beneath me. In a flash, Dorian is by my side, crouching down enough to slip his shoulder under my arm to support me. I flinch away at his touch, but he’s stronger than me and holds on firmly. “You, but — I don’t — How…? _How_?” I hoarsely whisper, tears springing up in my eyes as images flood my mind of him spreading my secret to the Inquisition leading to everyone torturing me daily like my Clan did.

“ _Calm down_ ,” he whispers, quickly checking to see if Bull or Varric have noticed anything amiss, but the two of them are still facing away from us and into the fire. “I’m not going to tell anyone, and I’m not going to hurt you.”

“ _Yes you_ _are_!” I cry in despair so loudly that our companions definitely would have heard but for Dorian’s ward. “Sathan nuas’em din (“Please don’t hurt me!”)!” His touch is becoming Alerion’s in my mind, his nails becoming Mithra’s knives. “Always did! Never stop! Can’t let them know!” It’s getting harder to speak in a tongue he’ll understand, my words jumbling and getting incoherent. My breathing is getting too fast, the dusk around us becoming blurry, and my heartbeat feels like thunder in my chest.

“Hamasha!” Dorian says as gently yet firmly as he can. “I don’t know who hurt you before, but _I am not them_ ! I will _not_ hurt you! If I had wanted to do that, wouldn’t I have done it by now?”

My breathing and my heartbeat aren’t getting any better, but his words seem to have stopped them from getting worse as well. “But you’ll… You’ll tell someone, and _they_ will hurt me?” It comes out as a question, like I don’t even believe myself.

“Of course I won’t!” he says in exasperation. “Think it through Hamasha: If I had wanted to share your secret with anyone else, I would have done that by now! The only times I’ve spoken of it aloud were just now within the ward to you and when we were in the future and I implied it while whispering!”

He’s right, I know he is, but it’s not enough. I _need_ to know he won’t change his mind later. I weakly twist around to face him, placing my hands on his shoulders and staring up into his eyes with such intensity the Tevinter mage can’t look away. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone my secret!” I beg him, the tears still falling from my eyes. “Please promise me, Dorian!”

He stares at me with his chocolate brown eyes for the shortest of moments, but then he solemnly replies, “I promise I won’t tell anyone your secret, Hamasha.”

“ _Thank you_. Ma serannas (“My thanks / thank you”).” Slowly, I feel myself begin to calm down. My legs are working again, but they feel wobbly, so I continue to clutch his shoulders. “I… Would you please help me to my tent?” I weakly ask.

He gently helps me cross the short distance to my tent without a word, and the magical silence fades away as we cross the line of Dorian’s ward. As I slip inside, practically collapsing onto my sleeping mat, he hesitates for a moment, indecision in his eyes. I wearily look up to him in question, and, having apparently reached a decision, he casts a new ward over the tent. “Would it help to talk about it?” he slowly asks, clearly fearing my reaction to his question.

I wearily sigh. “To talk about what, precisely?” I ask, my eyes half lidded. “About how I’m a freak of nature or about why I have my scars?”

“You are _not_ a freak,” he growls, his face twisting into an angry scowl, “and anyone who tells you otherwise isn’t worth being around!”

“You honestly believe that?” I ask in a tone of disbelief. “How can you? Even if this Mae-whoever _does_ exist and _is_ like me, then we are a group of _two_. If we are the only two who are different, then how can we not be aberrations? Mistakes?”

“Even if you _are_ mistakes, is it wrong for you to be yourself?”

That gives me pause. “My clan thinks so,” I whisper after a few moments have passed, unconsciously tracing my fingers over some of the scars on my arms.

Understanding dawns clearly on Dorian’s face. “My father never physically attacked me,” he murmurs, “but he did try to harm me.”

“I don’t understand,” I reply after a moment, my eyes wide. “Are you like me then?”

“Not quite,” he says, his lips curling up ever so slightly at that. “I mentioned before that I’m a pariah back home. I’m shunned because I like men. As in, I only fancy, love, and fuck men.”

My jaw drops open before I realize how rude that is and snap it shut with an audible click. “Ah.” I’ve heard of people of the same gender having sex before, but it’s definitely not common. To be honest, I’m not sure how it works though. I mean, I’ve often wondered (Usually when my mind is oh so helpfully trying to envision how sex would work between Bull and me.), and I’ve never come up with a really good answer (Which you would think would cause my isalathe for Bull to wither, but if anything, the mystery of how we could have sex makes me want to figure out the answer even more.). Creators help me, now I’m blushing as images of Dorian having sex with Bull (Why I’m envisioning Bull as the other participant is entirely beyond my sleep-addled brain’s capacity to understand at this point.) flash through my head, and Dorian’s slowly growing smirk isn’t helping matters _at all_.

“So tell me,” Dorian asks after watching my blush grow darker and darker for a few minutes’ time, his tone sounding entirely too pleased for some reason. “Do you think _I’m_ a freak?”

“Of course not,” I reply in confusion. “I mean, it’s _rare_ for people of the same gender to have sex, but it happens.”

“Mmm. And why is it okay even though so few people do it?” he further questions, satisfaction gleaming in his eyes.

“Because you can’t help who you’re attracted to,” I answer. My eyes widen then as I abruptly realize the point Dorian’s making.

He spells it out anyway. “And if it’s okay for me to have sex with men because I can’t help who I’m attracted to, then why isn’t it okay for you to live as the gender you can’t help but know you are?”

“You’re right,” I breathe out in wonder. “Creators, how have I not realized that before?”

“Some people out there will always hate us for being different, Hamasha,” he says as he takes a seat beside me. “All I’m saying is that you should still be proud of who you are. We are _not_ freaks. We’re just pariahs.”

A weak smile finds its way to my lips at that. So he’s not asking me to change how I interact with the world, just how I view myself… Yeah, I think I can do that. “Okay. I… I still don’t want you to share my secret, but I think I can work on being proud that I’m being myself.”

“Atta girl,” he proclaims before pretending to hold up a stein in toast. “Here’s to being a pariah!” When I don’t raise my own invisible glass, he dramatically sighs in exasperation. “It’s not much of a toast if I’m the _only_ person raising my drink, you know. Be a friend and show a bit of camaraderie, would you?”

I giggle, quite unable to help myself, and raise my hand into the air, fingers curled around nothing. “To being a pariah!”

We clink our faux steins together and drink heartily of camaraderie between friends, of a sweet nectar that I wouldn’t trade for the world.


	5. In Your Heart Shall Burn (AKA I Really Need to Stop Jinxing Myself)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hamasha says something she doesn’t mean to, gets a warm hug, and discovers that she’s jinxed herself really badly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Dragon Age: Inquisition or any other BioWare intellectual property. Aqun-Athlok is a fan-based work and not sold for profit.
> 
> ***WARNING: PAST ABUSE is heavily hinted at and at some points outright mentioned. Reader be advised.
> 
> ***SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for any Dragon Age game — they're going to happen. You’ve been warned.

_“Atta girl,” he proclaims before pretending to hold up a stein in toast. “Here’s to being a pariah!” When I don’t raise my own invisible glass, he dramatically sighs in exasperation. “It’s not much of a toast if I’m the_ only _person raising my drink, you know. Be a friend and show a bit of camaraderie, would you?”_

_I giggle at that, quite unable to help myself, and raise my hand into the air, fingers curled around nothing. “To being a pariah!”_

_We clink our faux steins together and drink heartily of camaraderie between friends, of a sweet nectar that I wouldn’t trade for the world._

\---

 **Aqun-Athlok**  
By: Eva Grimm  
 _Chapter Five: In Your Heart Shall Burn (AKA I Really Need to Stop Jinxing Myself)_

 _“Hey! She’s awake_ and _using one of the curse words I taught her. Those are good signs, I think.”_

_“And how, precisely, is the second one supposed to be a good thing, Chief?”_

_“It means she didn’t get any brain damage.”_

\---

You know, I honestly thought the people of Haven couldn’t possibly revere ‘The Herald of Andraste’ any more than they already did. Successfully sealing the Breach with the help of the rebel mages immediately disabused me of that notion. In fact, not only have they literally been singing my praises all around the village. No really. And might I point out that it was weird enough to have Outsiders worshiping the ground I walk upon and that it is positively _surreal_ to hear a Durgen’lan (“Female Dwarf”) singing sweetly of how I am the kindest healer to have graced Thedas whilst a trio of male Shemlen around the corner tell an imagined tale of how I felled a high dragon (I say imagined because although I have now participated in killing _two_ high dragons and lived (Thank you, Creators!) to tell the tale, their version has me single-handedly facing down the dragon and ultimately ending the fight by tearing it in half with magic (Do these Shemlen know nothing about high dragons?! Honestly! Thinking _anybody_ could rip one in half with magic is patently absurd!) moments before the beast could begin assaulting Redcliffe village.) with bold harmonies I’ve never heard from an Elvehen tongue.

 _Point is_ , we did it. We actually managed to seal the breach! And on a plus note, the rebel mages’ assistance has been a huge boon to their reputation amongst the Inquisition, though Commander Cullen is still less than thrilled to have them aboard at all, much less as allies. Strangely enough, Cassandra was on my side of the (thankfully) brief clash of wills between Cullen and me, and she pointed out that I had already accounted for the possibility of his desired precautions in how I phrased the offer of partnership to the rebel mages. I had already made this argument myself, so I wasn’t particularly thrilled when he begrudgingly accepted it as valid once Cassandra raised it. I know he was concerned that it may be easier for demons to corrupt even the strongest willed mages, and I know that such a concern applies to me as well, but if he had honestly thought I might be an abomination in disguise trying to trick him into letting his guard down, then he shouldn’t have been any more convinced by Cassandra backing up my argument.

Ah. I’ve gotten off point again… Maybe I’ll manage to stop rambling so much in my head someday, but that day isn’t today, apparently. What I’ve been trying to get at this whole time is Haven is currently in the midst of a full blown celebration that began in the early hours of the day after we returned from the ruins of the temple and has been going on none stop since, undeterred by the setting sun.

“You’re right, Chief,” Krem says with a laugh, bringing me back to the present. “She does think too much!”

The rest of the Bull’s Chargers, who are all seated around a fire on the outskirts of Haven and drinking the night away in their plainclothes, laugh as well, but it’s obvious they mean nothing bad by it. At least, that much is obvious to me now, though I suspect I would have been severely put out had I been in this same situation the day I first woke up in Haven. Outsiders aren’t seeming quite as strange to me anymore. I mean, they’re still utterly ridiculous at the best of times in my opinion, but I’m getting used to that quirkiness.

I manage to not blush too much, though I doubt the slight increase in my cheeks’ shade has escaped the notice of Bull or maybe even Krem. “There’s nothing wrong with thinking,” I steadily reply at a firm enough volume that everyone around the fire can hear. My inner Varric (I _may_ be spending a lot of time with him. But he’s my first friend, so can I really be blamed for that?) suddenly speaks up in me, and I find myself adding with a light hearted grin, “If you’re having trouble with doing it yourself, then maybe I could be convinced to give you some help, Krem.”

The group bursts into laughter even more loudly than before, including Krem who actually seems to be the most amused by my tease. “I think I’ll be fine, thanks,” Krem quips back with a grin of his own once the laughter’s died down. “It’s the Chief you need to worry about, Hamasha. I’m pretty sure the space in his head is taken up by more horn instead of a brain.”

I hide my smile behind my stein as the target of the Chargers’ jokes shifts to Bull. It’s nice to see him interacting with his men, treating them like good friends rather than just a band of mercenaries; it’s obvious how much he cares about them. I resolve to spend to more time with the group if possible, to see more of this side of him.

“Who knows?” Bull responds, artfully shrugging before taking a swig of his drink. “Maybe that’s why I keep you around, Krem de la Crème.”

Krem rolls his eyes in fond exasperation before turning his attention to me and saying, “I’m glad he has someone new to hit with that joke.”

“Ah,” I reply, somewhat confused. “I’m afraid I don’t understand it, actually.”

Bull, who is by now quite familiar with my occasional need for an explanation about Outsider concepts, explains. “‘Crème de la Crème’ is some sort of Orlesian saying that means ‘best of the best.’ Spelling’s just different from Krem’s name.”

“Oh, okay,” I respond, acknowledging that I understand now. My brief lesson in Orlesian slang killed off the flow of ribbing, so to reignite it, I turn to Krem and grin. “I’m sure there must be worse places to go with ‘Cremisius.’ I’ll have to check with Varric about it later.”

Krem snorts at that. “No need. I’m sure the Chief’s already thought of them all. He loves his nicknames.”

“Hey, when I was growing up, my name was just this series of numbers. We all give each other nicknames under the Qun.”

Wait, really? They honestly do that to their _children_ ? That’s barbaric! If they do that, then I don’t even want to _think_ about what they would have done to someone like me when I was a child… And if that’s the kind of environment Bull grew up in… Then he’d probably be repulsed if he learned the truth about me, and even if he wasn’t, he certainly wouldn’t return my isalathe (“desire, infatuation”).

Oblivious to the fact that half of my concentration is now devoted to holding back the tears threatening to spill out of my eyes, the conversation continues as Krem remarks, “They ever wear shirts under the Qun, Chief? Or do they just run around binding their breasts like that?”

“It’s a _harness_ , Krem.”

“Yes, for your pillowy man-bosoms! Let me know if you need any help binding. It’s not hard to do once you get used to it, and you could really chisel something out of that overstuffed look.”

With my focus still split in half as I try to avoid imagining how disgusted Bull would be if he learned my secret, I ask without thinking, “Why are you used to binding, Krem?”

“I… Err…” Krem half-heartedly replies before trailing off.

That gets my attention. “I’m sorry,” I respond, sensing this must be a sensitive topic though I’m not sure why. “Did I say something wrong?”

When it becomes obvious that his second-in-command isn’t going to respond, Bull jumps in instead. “In Qunandar, Krem’d be an ‘aqun-athlok.’ That’s what we call someone born one gender but who lives another — their true gender.”

Born one gender but who lives another? So then Krem… My eyes widen in shock, and before I can stop myself, I exclaim, “Wait, you were born a woman?!”

Krem, who is obviously growing more uncomfortable by the second, says nothing. Bull, however, stands so he is towering over me and carefully replies, “Yes. Is there a _problem_ , Boss?”

I don’t know what possesses me to say it. Maybe I say it because all the Chargers’ are now glaring at me because I’ve seemingly insulted their comrade. Maybe I say it because Krem, one of the first Shemlen to actually treat me as someone more than the ‘Herald of Andraste,’ is refusing to look me in the eye and might never speak to me again. Maybe I say it because Bull is towering over me and I can’t help but remember how moments before we spoke to one another for the first time he snapped a woman’s neck. Maybe I say it because, in spite of the tension of the moment, I’m more excited than I ever have been in my life to finally learn that there’s a word for what I am, that Dorian was right and there really are _people like me_ . Maybe I say it for none of those reasons. But regardless of _why_ I say it, what matters is that I _do_ say it:

“Krem’s like me?!”

My stein drops to the snow covered ground as I clap my hands over my mouth in horror, but the damage is done. Before anyone can say anything, I abandon the log I converted into a makeshift seat and sprint away from the fire in fear, tearing through the snow into the wilderness and stumbling occasionally from being unable to see clearly through the tears now pouring freely from my eyes. Someone behind me shouts, “Wait!” but I don’t. I can’t. The terror suffusing me won’t allow it.

I was a fool.

“Hamasha!” It’s difficult to tell, but I think I hear multiple pairs of feet chasing after me.

I was a fool to think I could keep my secret hidden. Dorian discovered it, and if one person can figure it out, then obviously there’s the chance someone else can too.

“Come back!” I’m now so far out into the wilderness that the din of Haven’s celebration is faint enough for me to know that, yes, multiple people are behind me. More importantly, they’re getting closer.

This is just like it was with the Clan. A handful of my kin with Mithra and Alerion at the head of the pack chasing me down, itching to beat me, to spit upon me, to tear at my clothes, to break my staff, to carve edhis (“penis”), harellan (“traitor”), del (“wrong”), dina (“die”), or any number of other awful words into my skin.

“ _Boss_ !” There was _no_ mistaking that voice. Even if I wasn’t intimately familiar with his deep, rumbling bass from all the time I’ve spent with him (both in the physical world and in my dreams), nobody besides Bull calls me ‘Boss.’ “Just stop for a second!”

Some part of me wants to stop. It wants to stop for so many reasons. Two sides of me are warring, both wanting what the other doesn’t, and I don’t know what to do. Help or harm, acceptance or disgust, life or death, love or hate… Stopping could mean any one of those results, but I have no idea what they odds of any given one of them happening are, so _how am I supposed to choose_?

My foot catches on a root protruding from the ground that was completely obscured under snow, and I promptly fall face first into the snow. Well, at least now I don’t have to worry about being unable to choose… I twist myself upright in the snow, still unsure of what I should do, but the choice is taken out of my hands again when Bull skids to a halt over me, grabs me out of the snow, and pulls me into a hug.

The cold of my tears is clashing against his warm chest. “I don’t care what gender you were born as or what name you were given at birth.” The scars on my soft, pale skin are brushing against those on his rough, gray skin. “What matters is who you are.” The calloused fingers of one of his hands are carding through my pale blonde hair with a gentleness that contrasts harshly with his unyielding hug. “So tell me.” His hug yields, and the hand in my hair gently tugs my hair. A strange warmth pulses through me in spite of my wet clothes as I comply with his hand’s silent directions, a shiver of desire that suffuses me to the very core as I submit to his hand tilting my head back so I am looking up into his blackish brown eye and so his eye is looking down at me — down and _through_ me.

“Who are you, Boss?”

Though they’re unspoken, I can hear the questions within his question: ‘Do you trust me?’ and ‘Will you relinquish control?’

I do trust him. I can relinquish control. I don’t have to carry this burden anymore.

I take a deep breath to steel myself, his musk turning me on more than ever, but I push that aside as best as I can. “My parents named me Virisha (“path of a man”), because they believed I was a boy and wanted me to grow up strong.” Somehow, for some reason, my tears have stopped. Maybe I’ve cried so much and so quickly that I have no more left to shed. Bull’s eye is perfectly clear in my eyes. “When I was given to Clan Lavellan to become their First, my new Clan told me I would be become a man.” I’m faintly aware that someone else is standing nearby, but my gaze never leaves Bull’s eye. “They were _wrong_ !” In the periphery of my vision, the muscles in Bull’s face contract just so, and I know from my time watching him that he is smiling. “I am _not_ Virisha, and I am _not_ a man!” My voice is trembling, but I can’t stop. The words are just spilling out now, a pressure held in for too long that has to be freed.

 _“You are_ not _a freak.”_

“My name is _Hamasha_ (“sleeping woman”)…”

_“Be proud of who you are.”_

“I am a _woman_ …”

_“In Qunandar, Krem’d be an ‘aqun-athlok.’”_

“And I am an _aqun-athlok_!”

The warning bells of Haven abruptly begin to ring. Bull and I tear our eyes away from one another, immediately seeking out the cause of the alarm. There in the distance, an army with no banner is approaching Haven.

Fenedhis (“Wolf dick”).

Bull releases me in an instant and scoops me up onto his shoulder. “Krem,” Bull tells my kin (Now that I know about him, he’s more kin to me than my Clan ever was as far as I’m concerned.), “go round up the Chargers, prepare for battle, and get them in position behind the gate.”

Krem’s eyes flick over to me for a fraction of a second, his golden brown eyes sending me a silent promise that we’ll talk later, then he turns on his heel and sprints towards the gates at a speed I doubt he could match in his full armor. Bull follows immediately, matching my kin’s pace but not path, diverging so the two of us are moving towards the forge where Master Harritt plies his craft. “I know for a fact that Harritt just recently finished a set of armor and a new staff for you that are supposed to be much better quality than what you’ve been running around in,” he says while running, answering my unspoken question. “Krem will bring me my axe, so we can focus on getting you geared up.”

In short order, we reach the forge and find Harritt trying in vain to move a fallen storage crate lying in front of the door to his sleeping quarters. Bull grabs it and chucks it aside as though it weighs practically nothing and tells the Shem we need the materials he forged for me right away and that he should then get to safety behind the gates. The Shem doesn’t ask a single question (Though to be fair, the approaching army is probably a pretty obvious reason why I need gear.), rushes into his room for a second, then runs back out a few moments later with a hammer.

“It’s all in here,” he says as he slaps his hand against a different storage crate. “I trust you can figure out how to get it open.”

“Yeah,” Bull simply replies. I can’t see his face from up here, but I can hear the anticipation in his voice, and I seriously doubt it has anything to do with my getting new gear. I roll my eyes. I have isalathe for him, but I will never understand his love of bigger and tougher fights. As the Shem heads towards the gates, Bull deposits me on the ground while commanding, “Strip.”

I flush darkly (For more reasons than one, none the least of which is how badly I want to hear him say that to me in a very different context.) but immediately comply. There’s no time for modesty when a bloody army is approaching, and he knows my secret now anyway. That thought sends a strange shiver through me (Or maybe it’s because of the cold. I may have mentioned that it’s snowing out and that I just a short while ago fell face first into snow and have been in wet clothes since. All these things tend to produce shivers.), but there’s no time to waste, so I hastily begin to tear off and discard my soggy plainclothes as Bull stalks over to the indicated crate, grabs the lid with one hand, and rips the lid off and tosses it aside in one smooth motion. His eyes respectfully stay fixated on the crate’s interior rather than my state of undress (Not that some part of me isn’t wanting his gaze to sear over me.).

Soon after, pieces of armor are tossed my way over his shoulder. First, a pair of dark red trousers (Creators bless him for letting me cover up… _that_ first.) made of a tough cloth and adorned with pieces of a bronze metal here and there. They fit tightly and without yielding, very effectively flattening out my crotch. Next, a matching, high collared, long-sleeved tunic with a long series of clasps, the tunic’s material and clasps the same tough cloth and pieces of bronze metal used for the trousers. Next, a pair of very sturdy, dark brown leather boots with buckles, clasps, and ornamentation all made from the same bronze metal as the trousers and tunic. And last but not least, a leather jacket made from the same durable hide as the boots that is clearly meant to be worn open for although there are bronze metal buttons lining one side of the front. Rather than being worn closed, the jacket is held tight at my natural waist by a leather belt with a hue that matches the bronze metal ornamentation of the rest of the armor, a book bound in the same leather hanging down from it over my right hip.

Now fully clothed, I can properly appreciate the sheer quality of workmanship that’s clearly been imbued into my new armor. Until now, I’ve been wearing the same armor Keeper gave me as a disguise to sneak into the chantry. That armor was certainly acceptable for combat, but _this_ armor… This armor is clearly meant for heavy combat. It’s obvious the tough materials will stand up well against enemy attacks, and the book hanging from my belt is clearly enchanted to magnify the user’s willpower and strength of magic. I have no idea where Harritt found the book (There are no enchanters at Haven, a problem that Leliana and Josephine have been working to rectify.), so I can only presume one of the rebel mages must have donated it for the cause.

“Let’s get moving,” Bull says as he abandons the crate, a gorgeous staff in hand which he hands over to me. Its top is a magic crystal securely fastened between four short rods in a cross formation set within a larger square of rods. The square housing is attached to a traditional long handle with a sturdy grip of cloth and minor carvings of power that amplify the flow of magic as best as can possible without the presence of true runes. On the opposite end of the handle is an ornamented staff blade of the same bronze mental used for my armor, a blade coupled with two sets of wings that curve away from each other — one up towards the handle and the square housing of the staff’s crystal and one down towards the sharp, gleaming blade.

We have no time to waste, and I’m still clearly a bit wobbly on my feet from my earlier exertions (I don’t so much as jog on a regular basis, much less sprint.), so Bull swiftly scoops me up and dashes off towards the gates. As we cross the short distance, I feel my eyes prickling somewhat with the urge to shed tears, though my eyes are still quite dry after all of my earlier crying. My Clan’s master crafter always gave me the most basic of armors and clothes, and I have never put much effort into crafting my staffs because I knew they would always be ruined sooner rather than later. This armor and this staff… They are the finest I have ever worn and wielded, and Master Harritt crafted them especially for me and without my requesting them. I absolutely must thank him later.

A young man wearing a patchwork tunic and the most wide-brimmed hat I have ever laid eyes upon suddenly materializes before us, causing Bull to snarl and abruptly skid to a halt in a battle ready stance as the young man throws something at — no, _past_ — us. The sickening sound of metal piercing flesh comes from behind us, and I twist around on Bull’s shoulder just in time to see a Shem dressed in the garb of the attacking army falling to the ground, his one eye glowing red from obvious exposure to red lyrium and a dagger sticking out of his other eye, blood spurting freely around it.

I turn back to face forward as Bull growls out, “What the _fuck_ are you?”

“I’m Cole,” the young man answers, his head tilted forward so the brim of his hat hides his eyes.

I eye the person who literally appeared out of thin air, my lips twisting into a frown as I notice how the Beyond is reacting around him. “He’s a spirit,” I declare as I push off of Bull’s shoulder and land on the ground with a soft grunt. “At least, that’s my initial guess, based on what I’m observing. He could be a demon.”

“Boss…” His concern is palpable.

“This is my area of expertise,” I say as I slowly retrieve the staff strapped to my back. “Please let me handle it. Now Cole. You stopped that Shem about to attack us from behind. Thank you. Please explain how you left the Beyond and what you’re doing here.”

The spirit/demon finally lifts his chin, the brim of his hat lifting away to reveal pale, milky eyes gazing intently into my own. Behind him, the gates of Haven open, and Commander Cullen rushes out towards us. “You’re welcome,” Cole says, his words sounding genuine to my ears, though I know better than to trust that when speaking with a denizen of the Beyond. “I do not know how I came to be, but I came to warn you — to help. People are coming to hurt you. You… probably already know.”

“If you’re talking about the army, then yes, we’ve noticed,” I dryly reply. You know, if I can manage to do that in front of a potential demon, then my ability to talk to strangers is getting a _lot_ better. “Anything else we need to be warned about?” Oh Creators help me. I probably just jinxed myself.

“They’re red templars, and the Elder One leads them,” Cole responds as Cullen reaches us. Fenedhis. Yup. Totally jinxed it.

“Templars?!” Cullen exclaims. “Is _this_ the Order’s response to our talks with the mages? Using red lyrium and consorting with the person who likely opened the Breach?”

The spirit/demon/ _whatever he is_ ignores Cullen, his gaze still locked onto me. “You know the Elder One? He knows _you_ . You took his mages. He’s _very_ angry that you took his mages.”

Oh delightful. More consequences of my decision to recruit the mages’ help. “Cullen, if what Cole’s saying is true, then we can’t allow the Elder One to get what he wants. We need to evacuate them and any non-fighters in Haven. Give me a plan to make that happen!”

“That is Samson leading the enemy forces,” Cullen says, his eyes locked on someone in the distance, “and the bulk of the enemy force is still coming over the mountain. This will _not_ be easy. Haven is no fortress, so if we’re to have any hope of winning here, then we _must_ control the battle. We can use the trebuchets to bury the enemy and level the playing field.”

Bull chuckles darkly at that, his eyes gleaming while still carefully watching Cole for any sudden movements. “Oh, _we’ll_ take care of that. _Chargers_!”

A fully armored Krem emerges through the open gate, a sword in hand with its blade resting against his shoulder, and the battle ready Bull’s Chargers right behind him. “Aye, Chief?” my kin calls out.

“Horns up! Secure the outermost trebuchet!”

“Horns up!” Krem responds with a grin as he and the rest of the company quickly head out to the trebuchet

“You know I’m coming with you, right?” I say as I return my staff to my back.

“That right? Not afraid to get your shiny new armor all covered in blood?” he quips back with a grin.

“Someone’s got to keep your ass alive,” I reply, testing out some of Bull’s unfamiliar curse words with my own tongue. He laughs in response, so I’m not sure if I got it right or not. “Besides, the cloth _is_ dark red, so the stains won’t really be noticeable. Now pick me up and start running!” I continue, finishing with a grin of my own.

Bull laughs again as he hauls me up onto his shoulder. Time to go bury an army.

\---

In the time it takes us to fight off red templars for long enough to aim and fire two of the Inquisition’s three trebuchets once, I have learned seven things: First, Skinner _really_ hates Shemlen, or in other words, whenever she cuts down another Shem, she gets the same maniacal look on her face that Bull did when fighting that high dragon on the Storm Coast. Second, Rocky likes to blow shit up. More than a few half scorched limbs have hit me after a group of red templars have unwittingly crossed over Rocky’s explosive traps. Third, Bull doesn’t know what the difference between a potion and a poultice is, which can’t be good for his stomach. Fourth, even though Grim doesn’t talk much, he tends to shout while fighting. I don’t mean the occasional shout while striking a blow; he shouts _the whole time_ . Fifth, Dalish does not have a staff and does not cast magic. She has a ‘bow’ and shoots ‘arrows.’ She will actually explain this to the enemy while killing them if they shout something along the lines of ‘Get that mage!’ before charging at her. Sixth, it’s for some reason easy to _forget_ Cole exists, who apparently snuck after us to help, and he has no qualms using that skill to cut down templars. It’s a truly bizarre ability, and if I live through this, I’ll have to remember to ask him about… About… Well, I wanted to ask _someone_ about something, but I can’t quite remember, and I don’t think trying to remember it in the middle of repelling an army is the smartest idea.

You may have noticed that I mentioned aiming and firing _two_ trebuchets _once_ each. You _also_ may have noticed that I said I learned seven things and only told you six.

The seventh thing I learned is that if I walk into a dangerous situation (Walking into Redcliffe Castle to fight a crazy Shem magister, for example.), think to myself, ‘Oh, I’d rather be fighting this other terrible thing that’s technically less dangerous but really only by a bit’ (Thinking ‘Yes, a high dragon is dangerous, but in a relatively predictable way, so I’d prefer that over crazy Shem magisters any day,’ for example.), and then think to myself ‘Oh, I bet I just jinxed myself’ (Like what I totally did in Redcliffe Castle, for example.), then the answer is yes — yes, I have absolutely just jinxed myself. Or to abbreviate that: Be careful what you wish for.

The Elder One has a high dragon, and it’s destroyed the last two trebuchets.

Unsurprisingly, as I finish aiming our last trebuchet while Bull and the Chargers deal with the last wave of red templars, the high dragon comes swooping down on us again, its mouth already glowing red as it prepares to unleash another fireball.

Well, I’ve learned seven new things today, so I may as well be gracious and teach the high dragon some new things as well: First, if you keep attacking the enemy the same way, then they know what you’re going to do. Second, one attack might miss a small target, but multiple attacks will probably result in at least one of them hitting a small target.

Moments before the beast is about to attack, I shoot an energy barrage out of my staff at its face. Most of the blasts harmlessly strike the scaly skin around the beast’s eye, but one of them hits the eye dead center. Caught off guard, the dragon releases the fire in its mouth before it’s fully formed into a fireball, torching the ground around the trebuchet but leaving it otherwise intact. Half blinded, the beast nearly crashes into the weapon but manages to swerve at the last second, its wing glancing off of the wood just enough to throw off the aim before it flies off to recover. I slip my staff onto my back and start to rush forward to fix the trebuchet’s aim (If we fire it now, then it will hit the mountain we’re next to, burying us under snow just like we were doing to the enemy.), but I abruptly stop when my left hand begins to crackle and glow green at the same moment I feel a tremendous presence approaching.

Walking towards us through the fire without suffering any visible harm is an incredibly tall, misshapen figure with pieces of metal jutting out of his flesh and such palpable power that I can feel it from all the way over _here_. This must be The Elder One. There’s no one else it could be.

Fenedhis! “Bull!” I shout. “The Elder One’s here! We have to retreat!”

I stagger as a wave of sleepiness suddenly strikes me. “Whaaa…?” I start to mumble before trailing off into a yawn. No, this… Not normal? So sleepy… Maybe if I just take a _little_ nap… I snap awake with a hiss of pain as my mark sparks again, and in that brief moment of partial clarity, I barely manage to summon up enough will to dispel all magic spells in a circle around me. The sleepy haze lifts from my mind, but only then do I realize that I cast the spell to close myself to dispel the enemy’s sleep spell on anyone but me. Before I can act, the strange figure idly gestures, sending the sleeping forms of Bull and the Charges flying through the air into a nearby mine shaft.

“No!” I cry in vain, but the group has already fallen in.

“Pretender,” the figure before me says, his gravelly voice drawing my eyes back to him. “You toy with forces beyond your ken no _more_.” At the last word, his power flares about him, causing me to stagger from the sheer force of his presence.

This is bad. This is _really_ bad. “What are you?” I wonder aloud.

“Mortals beg for truth they cannot have. It is beyond what you are — what I was. Know me. Know what you have pretended to be. Exalt the Elder One, the will that is _Corypheus_ .” He raises a finger and points it at me. “You. Will. _Kneel_.”

Mortals? What he ‘was?’ Is he truly immortal or just claiming to be? Impossible to tell right now. More importantly, he purposefully sought me out and isolated me from everyone else, so the real question is… “What do you want from me?”

“I ask for nothing because it is not in your power to give,” he responds as he holds up his other hand, which is holding a strange black orb with deep, parallel grooves running all along it that I didn’t notice before. “But that will not stop me.” The orb begins to emanate a red aura, the Beyond swirling around it in ways I’ve never seen. “I am here for the Anchor. The process of removing it begins now.” He thrusts his free hand towards me, the same glow aura from around the orb surrounding it as well, and I clutch my left arm to my chest in pain as my mark begins to crackle violently. “It is your fault, ‘Herald.’ You interrupted a ritual years in the planning, and instead of dying, you stole its purpose. I do not know how you survived, but what marks you as ‘touched,’ what you flail at rifts, I crafted to assault the very heavens.” I collapse to my knees in agony as the crackling grows in intensity, barely able to focus enough to understand him as he continues to speak. “And you used the Anchor to undo my work! The gall!”

“What is this thing meant to do?” I gasp out, the pain my mark is causing so unbearable I can’t focus on anything else.

“It is meant to bring certainty where there is none. For you, the certainty that I would always come for it.” He stops channeling his spell, stalks forward to me, and hauls me up into the air by my left arm. The pain continues to ramp up, bringing tears to my eyes despite my best efforts to contain them. My mark is actually _growing_ , the crackling green light in the palm of my hand spreading out in thin tendrils that begin to wrap around my hand and down my wrist “I once breached the Fade in the name of another, to serve the Old Gods of the Empire in person. I found only chaos, corruption, and dead whispers. For a thousand years, I was confused. No more. I have gathered the will to return under no name but by own, to champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world. Beg that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the gods, and _it was empty_!”

He abruptly throws me at the trebuchet, and I strike it face first and hard, my forehead smashing into the wood with enough force to make my vision grow spotty and my nose crunching inwards.

“The Anchor is permanent,” he snarls from behind me. “You have spoiled it with your stumbling.”

I pull myself up into a seated position on the wood, healing my nose as best I can while I wait for my vision to recover.

“So be it. I will begin again, find another way to give this world the nation — and god — it requires.”

Begin again? Find another way? This monster killed hundreds at the conclave and who knows how many more vicariously through the demons he unleashed on Thedas, and he’s going to try and do it _again_ ? No. _No_ , I _cannot_ let that happen!

“And you…”

The trebuchet is aimed at the mountain over us, and I’m next to the release. If I hit it now, all of Haven will be buried.

“I will not suffer even an unknowing rival.”

There are maybe a couple hundred people here in Haven. There are hundreds of thousands of people across Thedas. The math is simple, even if making the choice isn’t.

“You _must_ die.”

“No,” I reply as pull myself to my feet and eye the mine shaft where Bull and the Chargers were thrown, which is now behind Corypheus. “But you do.” I thrust my hand at the trebuchet’s release, and with a mighty groan, the wooden weapon flings its ammo high up into the snowy maintain above. Corypheus whips his head up, tracing the flight of the projectile, and I immediately take advantage of his distraction, flashing forward through the Beyond to the spot between him and the mine and then releasing the largest mind blast I can muster. As I feel it blast him off his feet, I dash forward towards the shaft as fast as my legs will carry me while weaving side to side in case a spell comes flying at my back.

The mountains rumble as an avalanche begins, and a terrible roar rends the air as the dragon returns, doubtlessly swooping down to save its master from the coming disaster. Fenedhis! Did I just doom the people of Haven in a bid to kill this monster only to have him escape? There’s no time to think as I dive into the mine shaft, twisting in the air so I can seal the entrance behind me with a horizontal ice wall and laning in a large snow bank after a short fall. I scramble to pull myself out of the snow, since I seriously doubt my wall will hold up against an avalanche smashing down on it, but I freeze in place when I realize that the sleeping forms of Bull and the Chargers are also half buried in the snow. I hear the wall start to crack ominously overhead, so I immediately gather up what mana I’ve recovered and unleash another tremendous mind blast at the same moment the wall shatters above me.

\---

I wake with a start and immediately regret it as every part of me seems to be howling with pain. “Fuuuuck,” I swear, drawing out the word as I clench my eyes tightly shut and wrap my arms around myself in agony.

“Hey! She’s awake _and_ using one of the curse words I taught her,” I hear Bull’s voice say from close by. “Those are good signs, I think.”

“And how, precisely, is the second one supposed to be a good thing, Chief?” Krem drawls, his voice also coming from nearby.

“I also fail to see how using such words is good,” a vaguely familiar woman’s voice says from directly next to me, causing my eyes to snap open, revealing the roof of a tent.

“It means she didn’t get any brain damage,” Bull sagely answers as I rise enough under what feels like a blanket to prop myself up on my elbow and take in my surroundings.

I appear to be lying on a sleeping roll in a tent with no front or back hangings in a campsite set up in the snow. Mother Chissell (No wait… It’s Giselle. Varric corrected me some time after I first me her, once I got a better handle on the harder consonants Outsiders use in their languages.), who I realize was the voice from before, and Stitches, the Charger’s healer, are kneeling at my side, and Bull and Krem are seated on some boxes nearby where they appear to have been playing cards while I slept. I am, in fact, under a blanket, which is good because somebody stripped me of my jacket, tunic, foot wraps, and boots, leaving me in nothing but my trousers and my bra, which tends to not be appropriate attire for lying in a tent that has no front or back hangings in the middle of a snowfield with four people, only one of whom I actually want to see me naked (At some point, anyway. Even though our earlier conversation was cut off by the oh so rude arrival of Corypheus and his band of merry red templars, I was seriously getting the vibe that he views me as a woman even though I’m an aqun-athlok (And may I just point out how awesome it is to finally have a word, crazy word though it is, to describe how I feel?).).

“Yes, well, we wouldn’t want that,” I weakly reply, managing to convince my cold and sore facial muscles to produce a small smile. “So what happened?”

“You pulled off another miracle, Your Holiness Hamasha,” Krem responds, grinning at the smoldering glare (Okay, it _may_ have just been a pout. Not nearly as effective, I know.) I send his way. “While we were off burying the enemy under avalanches, everyone else was evacuating through a little known path that Chancellor Roderick thankfully knew about. Maker rest his soul.”

Wait, Maker rest…? Isn’t that what Shemlen say for their dead? “So he’s dead? How did he die?” I think Roderick is the chantry-man who on multiple occasions tried to jail me for allegedly killing the Divine, and though the man never made the best of impressions on me, I certainly never wished him dead.

“Yeah. He apparently took a templar blow meant for the child of one of the elf servants, and he succumbed to his wounds shortly after leading everyone in Haven to safety.”

“Ir abelas, Roderick. Vena’atisha inor dinathe (“I’m sorry, Roderick. Find peace among the dead.”),” I whisper. Clearly I never _really_ knew the man, just what he thought about the ‘Herald of Andraste.’

After a moment’s silence, Krem continues his story. “So yeah, Roderick had showed everyone the way to safety by the time we prepared that third trebuchet. None of us really remember how we ended up down in that mine shaft, though Dalish thinks we were hit with some kind of spell. Point is, next thing we knew we were flying away from a snow bank as a ton of snow poured in from above. The Chief swore he saw you in the snowbank for all the extra snow got piled on, so we started digging for you right away. Thankfully not a lot had poured in, and Dalish was able to help clear some of it really quickly with her spe— ahem, some kind of traditional elf technique for starting up a fire really fast. Sure enough, you were unconscious in there, and to make a long story short, we found our way out of the shaft, followed the trail the Inquisition forces left behind, and here we are.”

“Most everybody has been by to check on you at some point,” Bull adds to the end of Krem’s story. “Varric and Dorian were particularly worried, though they did their best to put on a brave face.”

“Thanks for explaining, you two,” I tell them with a full-fledged smile before turning my attention to the two Shemlen kneeling next to me. “And I suppose I have you two to thank for patching me up?”

Mother Giselle favors me with a thin smile, and Stitches just gives me an amicable nod before excusing himself to finally get some rest himself. After he’s left, Giselle simply says, “If you wish to heal your wounds with magic, then I will not take offense at your method being quicker than my own.”

I cringe but nevertheless start peeling off some of the poultices, so I can run my fingers over the open wounds beneath to seal them up with new skin. “You _did_ do a good job,” I hurriedly say in spite of her assurances. I’m just still really, really sore from being crushed by a ton of snow (or so Krem said), though I don’t say that part aloud. She gives me a knowing smile, and I do a poor job of concealing my blush, so I turn my attention back to my kin. “And yes, Krem, it was a sleep spell — a really powerful one. I nearly fell asleep too but managed to dispel the magic from myself after my mark started to react to Corypheus — that’s what the Elder One called himself — being near.” I pause then before saying, “Actually, I think the War Council should be here to hear this. Would one of you mind going to fetch them?”

Some time and one story later, the War Council, together with Cassandra who was present for my explanation, leaves my tent while arguing over what to do about Corypheus. Hours pass while I try recover from my fatigue, and they are still at one another’s throats, and I am still unfortunately awake. Giselle eventually begins to talk to me about in-fighting and the people’s struggle to understand seeing me, their defender, fight the enemy, fall, and then rise up again. In the end, it all boils down to me looking more and more like a holy figure to the people of — actually, I suppose I should say _survivors_ of — Haven.

The thought of all these people becoming even more assured in their view of me as holy, coupled together with inadvertently revealing my secret earlier and the Inquisition’s narrow escape from Corypheus, just adds to the weight I’m feel bearing down on my chest. Without a word, I pull myself to my feet and begin to trudge over to where Leliana, Cullen, Josephine, and Cassandra are arguing. I mean, if I can’t get to sleep anyway, then I might as well contribute to the debate, right?

To my surprise, Mother Giselle begins to sing as she follows me from behind, stepping out into the clearing by the bonfire. Her voice is deep and full of meaning as she sings of the coming dawn, the bright future that invariably follows the darkness. To my surprise, Leliana joins in on the second verse, and soon after, the rest of the Outsiders begin to join in as well, one by one until even Commander Cullen is singing. I don’t mind singing — quite enjoy it, actually — but the song takes an uncomfortable turn for me when some of those singing begin to kneel before me. This is _not_ okay. Creators, when will these people understand that I am not holy? That I wasn’t sent by their ‘Maker’ to save them? I may have come to accept the idea of taking on leadership responsibilities here and there, but I will _never_ be okay with anyone kneeling before me or calling me ‘Your Holiness’ (Krem was just picking on me earlier. These people _mean it_.) or whatever other crazy religious things Outsiders do.

Eventually, the song ends, and before she takes her leave, Giselle murmurs to me, “An army needs more than an enemy. It needs a _cause_.”

“A word?”

I turn in surprise at hearing Solas’ voice, but the strange city elf has already begun to walk off, leading the way from the center of the camp. The conversation that follows is both shocking and dismaying. The thought of Corypheus claiming one of my race’s long lost foci for his own is disturbing enough on its own, but Solas’ speculation that the orb Corypheus has is what caused the explosion at the Conclave is much more devastating. Worse yet, I suspect he’s not far off on that guess, since the orb seemed to play a part in Corypheus’ earlier attempts to tear the ‘Anchor’ out of me.

“One more reason he needs to be stopped,” I murmur after Solas finishes regaling me with what he knows about the orb. I sigh and turn to glance at our makeshift camp. “But it’s not going to be easy to do that without somewhere to call home. These people aren’t used to traveling like I am, like the Dalish.” When several moments pass without response, I turn my gaze back to him and find him smiling enigmatically. “What?”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, if I were you.”


	6. From the Ashes (AKA Fun Times with Swords and Chargers)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hamasha and the Inquisition settle into Skyhold, where she’s given a sword and starts learning how to make a spirit sword. After that, she’s reminded that being a leader isn’t always the best, she spends some time with Bull and the Chargers, and she gets caught off guard by both herself and someone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Dragon Age: Inquisition or any other BioWare intellectual property. Aqun-Athlok is a fan-based work and not sold for profit.
> 
> ***WARNING: PAST ABUSE is heavily hinted at and at some points outright mentioned. Reader be advised.
> 
> ***SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for any Dragon Age game — they're going to happen. You’ve been warned.

_“A word?”_

_I turn in surprise at hearing Solas’ voice, but the strange city elf has already begun to walk off, leading the way from the center of the camp. The conversation that follows is both shocking and dismaying. The thought of Corypheus claiming one of my race’s long lost foci for his own is disturbing enough on its own, but Solas’ speculation that the orb Corypheus has is what caused the explosion at the Conclave is much more devastating. Worse yet, I suspect he’s not far off on that guess, since the orb seemed to play a part in Corypheus’ earlier attempts to tear the ‘Anchor’ out of me._

_“One more reason he needs to be stopped,” I murmur after Solas finishes regaling me with what he knows about the orb. I sigh and turn to glance at our makeshift camp. “But it’s not going to be easy to do that without somewhere to call home. These people aren’t used to traveling like I am, like the Dalish.” When several moments pass without response, I turn my gaze back to him and find him smiling enigmatically. “What?”_

_“I wouldn’t worry about that, if I were you.”_

* * *

**Aqun-Athlok**

By: Eva Grimm

_Chapter Six: From the Ashes (AKA Fun Times with Swords and Chargers)_

_“If you’re worried about losing, then I’ll play too! I promise my ‘little’ bull will make an appearance!”_

* * *

“Holy shit,” I breathe out in awe, barely noticing the (for better or worse) increasingly familiar words dancing past my lips. Tearing my gaze away from the view of the massive fortress in the distance, I fix Solas with a look. “Solas, that was an… what’s that word Bull uses… understatement? I believe that’s it.”

Solas merely smiles in his usual, secretive way. “Skyhold. I trust this shall prove sufficient for the Inquisition?”

“‘Sufficient?’” I echo incredulously as my eyes return to their inspection of ‘Skyhold.’ After a moment, I comment, “I can’t help but think of those people back in Redcliffe at the Crossroads.”

“Oh?” he replies, sounding genuinely intrigued by my non sequitur. “And why is that?”

“Cassandra insisted on killing that dragon and her brood because it wouldn’t be ‘practical’ to move the Outsiders’ settlement away from the threat.” I turn back to face him, a weird mixture of resigned and pleased. “If we’re going to be stuck in one place, at least _this one_ looks like it could stand up to a high dragon attack.”

Fenedhis (“Wolf dick”)! Did I just jinx myself again? Because the last time that happened, an army of templars driven crazy through the use of tainted lyrium and led by the most powerful mage I’ve ever seen marched on the place where I was staying, intent on killing everyone there and using an ancient Elvhen artifact to rip the mark out of my hand so they could use it to bring about the end of the world. So, you know, not a good thing to repeat.

“Well, let us hope that is the case.”

You don’t know the half of it…

* * *

I breathe a sigh of relief as I slip out of Skyhold’s Undercroft and shut the heavy wooden door behind me. Now that I’ve properly thanked Master Harritt for the wonderful armor and staff he crafted for me (Both of which I am even more thankful for now that they’ve seen me through me defending against an army of… look, I’m not going to repeat it. Point is, the gear he made me is amazing.), I can finally go take a nap. Technically nothing was holding me back from doing so earlier, but my training as the First of my clan instilled in me a sense of obligation to my clan, and though the Inquisition is completely different from my old clan in every way, I can no longer deny that it is essentially my clan now. A crazy clan that likes to stay in one place instead of moving, but hey, it’s _my_ crazy clan. Well, not ‘my’ crazy clan, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, the point I was making was about obligation. Namely, I’ve felt obligated to run around all day and help contribute to the recovery effort in whatever ways I can. I already helped heal the last of the wounded from the assault on Haven while we were traveling here, so deprived of contributing in my only real field of expertise, my assistance has been hit-and-miss at best.

Help set up a garden for growing herbs? I’m not the best person to ask for help. I’m very good at using herbs, a skill that developed from the necessity of mixing the herbal supplements Keeper taught me for taking care of my pro— my being aqun-athlok (I promised Dorian I’d work on being proud of who I am, so I really ought to stop referring to being aqun-athlok as ‘my problem.’). Anyway, the point is: I’m good at using herbs, but planting them? Not so much.

Help Cabot, the bartender, clean the dusty mugs and other utensils in the cellar of the tavern? I could handle that. Speaking of the tavern, may I just add that it is _embarrassing_ to have a tavern named after me just because I fell asleep there the first night we arrived (I’m not joking. They named it “Herald’s Rest.”)? I was _tired_ , I couldn’t find the sleeping roll I’d been borrowing since the attack on Haven (Outsiders are really bad at moving their settlements, or anything at all, really. I know we left Haven in a hurry, but one would think they’d repack in a sensible fashion at the first chance we got, so we’d know how to quickly retrieve something in particular without having to first unpack _everything else_ to find it. _Honestly_!), and there was a bed in there (I have, to my shame, actually begun to find beds more appealing than the sleeping rolls I was raised to use.)! How does one happen upon the sight of me sleeping and decide ‘why yes, that _does_ make for a good tavern name’? Madness.

Help Harritt repair the gear damaged from the assault on Haven? I finished fixing the staffs quite quickly, but after managing for the third time to fuck up…Okay, I know that’s the correct use for the word, since I’ve heard Bull use it tons of times, but I’m still baffled by it. Why do Outsiders use the same word for pala (“sex; to have sex”) and for ruining something? Do they view having sex as ruining the participants? Do they view ruining something as being similar to sex? Otherwise, I frankly don’t see the conceptual similarity… At least Elvhen curse words like Fenedhis have conceptual similarity between the use of the curse and the meaning of the word. _Anyway_ , after repeatedly fucking up a damaged sword grip even more than it already was, Harritt sent me away.

Which actually brings us back to the present: Wanting to go take a nap after a long morning of thanking our resident blacksmith, properly fixing staffs, utterly devastating three sword grips, and being dismissed with a look that says, ‘I know you are just trying to help, but you are definitely not succeeding, so if you would kindly remove yourself from being even remotely near my very important forge, or any of my equipment for that matter, that would be just grand’ (Awful kind of him to not actually say that aloud, since it sounds awful just thinking it.).

“Ah, Hamasha. Just the person I was looking for.”

“Hello, Cassandra,” I reply, doing my best to keep the ‘I am tired so pleeeeeease just let me go to sleep’ out of my voice. “Something I can help you with?”

“Just a chat,” she assures, a light, half smile finding its way to her lips. I guess I didn’t quite keep all the weariness out of my voice after all.

Before I know it, she’s led me through the slowly being repaired grand hall (I would have thought it was a ‘room,’ but it seems Outsiders have yet _another_ word that basically means the same thing. I can’t help but wonder how they can keep track of them all.) and out the doorway onto the stairs overlooking the courtyard. Standing there on the stairs is Leliana, an ornamental sword held out towards me on her upturned palms, and loitering in the courtyard below is a crowd that seems to literally include everyone in Skyhold, all of them looking up at the three of us on the stairs.

I turn wide-eyed to Cassandra. “‘Just a chat,’ you say?” I mutter, my tone and volume much more restrained than I thought I could manage; a testament to how commonplace this sort of thing has become in my life since the explosion at the Conclave.

“Would you have run had I warned you?” she retorts, her demeanor giving away nothing.

“I don’t think so, no,” I carefully respond. And it’s true, oddly enough. At this point, I’ve been through way too much outlandish experiences during my time with the Inquisition to be scared of a crowd. Killing two high dragons, making an ally of a time-controlling Tevinter magister in the future so I can stop the machinations of his counterpart in the past, fighting off an army of templars that outnumber our forces by using trebuchets to bury them alive under avalanches, facing off against an absurdly powerful mage who has a pet dragon and a personal grudge against me… Am I forgetting anything?

“Good,” Cassandra says, drawing me out of my thoughts, a small smile finding its way to her face. “The Inquisition needs a leader, and though I will admit you are… a unique candidate, I cannot deny that you are the most fitting. You are the one who convinced us to seek out the mages; you are the one who carefully crafted a partnership with them that let us finally heal the sky; you are the one who lead a counter assault against Corypheus’ forces, which, intentionally or not, gave us the time and distraction we needed to escape Haven. Your decisions brought us here, and it is you who these people look to as their leader.”

I slowly turn my eyes back to the sword and stare at it. Sure, I’ll admit that I took a stance as a leader for the latter portion of our misadventure through time, but everything that happened at Haven was pure chance. I was just trying to make sure nobody got hurt…

 _“Somebody who doesn’t like to fight, who only cares about helping others… I think a healer is_ precisely _the kind of leader we need right now.”_

Did Dorian jinx me? I really need to stop this whole jinxing business. It’s been getting me into sticky situations far too often for comfort.

A strained laugh escapes my throat as the implications of what’s happening finally hit me. The Creators really do have a sense of humor, it would seem. All my life, I prepared myself as the First of my old clan, preparing to become its leader. I thought I’d escaped that, yet here I am, poised to become the leader of the Inquisition. I guess it really is ‘my’ crazy clan after all.

Without consciously thinking it through, I reach out and grasp the handle of the sword. Subtly lightening it with a bit of magic (I’m no warrior, but even I can tell that a sword with that much metal ornamentation must be decently heavy, and I’d really rather not make a fool of myself at the moment, thank you very much.), I lift it from Leliana’s grasp and hold it before me. It suddenly hits me that this is probably the sort of situation when one really ought to say something meaningful, but I can’t think of anything.

Thankfully, after only a few moments’ uncomfortable silence, my eyes are drawn from my hand’s tight grip on the heavy blade to edges of an l-shaped scar just barely poking out from underneath the long-sleeved tunic underneath the hide jacket of my armor — the end of a scar spelling out “del” (“wrong”).

The words begin to pour from my lips, and though only Cassandra and Leliana are there with me, I still feel the weight of all my companions’ gazes on me. “We all came together because of the Breach, and we remain together to fight Corypheus, but the Inquisition can do more than that. Thedas has been ill for longer than any of us has been alive, constantly plagued by both war against those like Corypheus and also between ourselves. We can — we _will_ — change that. The Inquisition and this world are for us _all_.”

The two women both give me an assessing look, and Cassandra replies, “Wherever you lead us.” I’m not sure what to make of it, though I think she sounded cautiously optimistic, but I’m given no time to ponder over it as she steps over to the edge of the stairs and calls out, “Have our people been told?”

“They have,” Josephine replies, a smile on her face, “and soon, the world.”

“Commander, will they follow?” Cassandra continues.

Cullen turns to the people amassed below, and shouts, “Inquisition! Will you follow?”

They all begin to shout and cheer, and I have to struggle to hold back the tears threatening to spill out of my eyes at their acceptance of me.

“Will you fight? Will we triumph?” he eggs them on. Unbelievably, the crowd gets even louder. A proud look upon his face, Cullen finally turns back to face me as he draws and lifts his sword into the air. “Your leader! Your Herald! Your _Inquisitor_!”

Unconsciously, I parrot him, lifting the sword in my hand and holding it up into the air. Another roar echoes through the crowd, and as they continue to cheer, I can’t help but think that yes, I really have found my clan.

* * *

“Hello! Yes, hello. I am Your Trainer,” the old Shem mage says as I approach, her dark eyes a tad unfocused.

“Oh good,” I reply in relief. I had presumed she was, since there are only so many mages in the courtyard, but I _had_ already mistaken one elderly Shem as being one of my potential trainers, so I think it’s pretty reasonable for me to fear I might approach the wrong person again. “And you are?” I continue, hoping to get her name.

“Your Trainer.”

I blink in confusion. “Yes, you said that…”

“Good because it has been a… long journey. The cause is just, and if we don’t start soon, you won’t have time to learn.” She clears her throat, then continues. “I am Your Trainer.”

Okay, yeah, I’m definitely confused. “Are you… okay?”

“No, no. I am not ‘Okay’; I am Your Trainer.”

After all my practice with my companions, I’m pretty confident I’ve got a reasonable command of this language by now, so unless this Shem doesn’t speak… No, no, that doesn’t make sense. This _should_ be her native tongue, but still, I guess it doesn’t hurt to check. “Ah… I fear I’m not coming across clearly. Do you speak another language?”

“‘Not Coming Across Clearly’?” she slowly repeats. “I thought you were the Inquisitor. Do you know where I can find the Inquisitor, Not Coming Across Clearly? Please let the Inquisitor know that I, Your Trainer, am here to train her.”

I stare at her for a moment longer before replying, “Yes, I, ah… I’ll go… find her.” With that said, I turn and leave as quickly as I think is polite. I don’t know what’s wrong with that woman or if she really is one of the three trainers Josephine arranged to visit, but if she _is_ one of the trainers, then I imagine that learning from her would be a… difficult to task. Well, unless she had compiled her teachings into a text or something. No, actually, I’m sure anything she wrote down would be equally hard to follow, so it would probably be an exercise in futility either way.

“So, Hamasha, how’s all this training business going, hm?”

Pulling myself out of my thoughts, I realize that I nearly walked right past Dorian without acknowledging him. “Sorry! I got a little lost in my head there,” I reply with a cringe.

“I’ve more than gotten used to your little quirks by now,” he jauntily retorts. “I think I can handle being briefly ignored, so long as you pay proper attention to my wondrous presence upon returning to your senses.”

“Well that’s good,” I say, a small smile briefly finding its way to my face before disappearing as I continue. “No training’s happened yet, unfortunately. The first trainer I met with is a master of necromancy, and I’m really more suited to keeping people alive than… ah, ‘using’ them once they’re dead.”

“Well I wouldn’t worry about it. That happens to be my specialty, so if you ever need a corpse to do a jig, sing a song, or whatever, then just let me know.”

Wonderful. Dancing dead bodies singing in harmony is exactly the sort of thing I love to think about on a regular basis. Just wonderful. Thank you so much, Dorian.

“But anyway,” he continues, blessedly distracting me from that image, “what about that lady you just met with?”

“I’m not really sure she’s… ah, what’s the phrase Bull uses… ‘all there in the head’? So I’m looking for the last trainer now.”

“Ah, but that’s the best sort of person to learn reality bending magics from!” he proclaims as we jointly start to move through the courtyard. “Who else can teach you to do the unimaginable but the very person you couldn’t imagine being able to? What’s their name? Maybe I’ll go steal a lesson or two from them, since you won’t be.”

“Your Trainer.”

“That _is_ the gist of what I’m proposing, yes.”

“No, really: That’s what she kept saying her name was.” At Dorian’s incredulous look, I add, “Feel free to go ask for some lessons. Just let tell her you’re the Inquisitor and that Not Coming Across Clearly sent you.”

“Either you’re getting better at telling jokes than I thought you were, or your initial assessment might not be too far off.”

“The second one,” I reply with a faint smile as I notice an imposing and well armored elf mage standing near the gate out of Skyhold. “Think that’s her over there?”

Following my gaze, Dorian remarks, “Well if nothing else, she certainly seems a bit more put together than any of the rebel mages, so I’m sure she could teach you some new tricks regardless. I’m off to the library, if you need me.”

I abruptly realize that this is the first time I’ve seen Dorian anywhere in Skyhold other than the library, but before I can remark on how uncanny that is, he’s waltzed off. Ah well. Seriously though, how odd is that?

Forcing myself to focus on the task at hand, I approach the elf mage, doing my best to hide how nervous I am. My past experiences with my own race usually have been… terrible, really, because I’m aqun-athlok. So you can understand that I’m still anxious around elves I don’t know, even though it’s true that Dorian, Bull and the Chargers all know I’m aqun-athlok and apparently don’t care (I know Dorian doesn’t, but I haven’t really had a good chance to have a proper conversation with Bull or anyone else in his group since we arrived in Skyhold. Still, given how defensive they were when they thought I was going to hate Krem for being aqun-athlok, I can’t help but think that they don’t mind that I am either.).

Before I can say anything to her, however, the elf says, “Hold and declare, Inquisitor.”

Ah… Well, okay, that’s a new phrase. “What do you mean?”

“I ask your intent,” she replies in a serious tone that fits her sharp eyes and reminds me of Cassandra. “I was summoned to oversee training, and I would know my charge. I am your commander in this matter — Commander Helaine.”

“I’m a healer,” I reply, carefully choosing my words, “but I can fight when it’s necessary.”

As Helaine begins to elaborate on her school of magic, that of a knight-enchanter, I can’t help but begin to smile. It’s a bit different than what I’m used to, but I think this will work out just fine.

* * *

So being the Inquisitor isn’t all it’s cracked up to be at times, though I’m not sure why I’m surprised.

I mean, I was surprised when Varric abruptly procured his friend Hawke, a Shem mage with past experience fighting Corypheus, out of nowhere and set me up to talk with her about our options moving forward. Likewise, I was surprised to discover that Corypheus might be able to control anyone with the darkspawn taint, Grey Wardens included. I was even surprised to discover how furious Cassandra was with Varric about having known where Hawke was this whole time. What I’m _not_ surprised about is that, as ‘leader,’ I had to be the one who calms everyone down, which isn’t fun when your friend is at least partially in the wrong. I mean, sure, I managed to help them… ah, I guess ‘work through it’ isn’t quite the right word for it, but I did get them to calm down.

There’s more to it, though — the Inquisitor bit, I mean. I also had to decide whether or not Cole gets to stay, and though I ultimately judged that he’d be an asset, it was still… Wait, what was I talking about? Something about someone staying… Well, it’ll come to me later. The other task I was going to mention is Mother Giselle approaching me about the letter from Dorian’s father. No matter what, I was going to be going behind _somebody’s_ back with that, whether I decided to trick Dorian into meeting with his father or to break my promise to Mother Giselle about not telling him.

I should hope it’s obvious what I decided to do.

 _The question is, what are_ you _going to do, Dorian?_ I think to myself as I step into the Herald’s Rest (That name still irks me, incidentally.) before I push that thought aside and prepare myself for what I’m about to do. Glancing around the tavern, I quickly find Bull and the Chargers seated off to the side, sharing some drinks.

“Hey, Boss!” Bull shouts as I walk over, his booming voice clearly carrying over the noise of the tavern’s patrons. “Come over here and pull up a chair!”

“Thanks,” I say with a smile as I grab a chair and settle down in the small space between Krem and Bull, the two of them moving their chairs enough to widen the gap. “And how’re you all doing tonight?”

Their reply, a collective cheer and clanging of steins, makes my smile widen, and after a few moments more of sloshing alcohol everywhere, all of the Chargers turn their attention back to the (admittedly now quite soaked) playing cards on the table in their midst. Only now realizing that Bull and Krem aren’t sitting directly at the table like everyone else and also that some of the Chargers are in various stages of undress  with clothes laying on the floor here and there, I turn to Krem with red cheeks and ask, “So, ah, why is…”

Taking pity on me (or I suspect as much), Krem laughs and replies, “They’re playing this game Skinner knows from her days in the alienage. Strip cards, or something like that. I’m not playing because I’m not fond of the game, and Chief isn’t allowed to play because he’ll just throw the game for a chance to get naked.”

Blushing furiously at the thought of Bull naked, I quickly squeeze my legs together to hide my body’s… reaction. “O-oh,” I manage to mutter, my voice higher pitched than usual. “Is that right? That sounds… _interesting_.”

Krem gives me a sly look that can only mean trouble. “Interesting, is it? Well, you know, if you’d like to get in on a round, I’m sure we could arrange it.”

“No, no!” I all but shout, the redness of my cheeks partly giving way to their usual pale color, leaving them a strange mixture of red and pale.

“But I thought you said it was interesting,” he pushes, his golden brown eyes dancing with mirth and… something else I can’t quite place.

Clapping one of his huge hands on my back, Bull bursts into laughter. “If you’re worried about losing, then I’ll play too! I promise my ‘little’ bull will make an appearance!”

I bury my face in my hands as the blush quickly begins to overcome my natural pale color again. This is _not_ how I envisioned this conversation going, especially since I came in here to— Oh right. I completely forgot. Creators help me, I am stupid!

Leaning over towards Krem and pulling my hands away from my face, I say in a quieter voice, “I actually have something I wanted to say to you alone, if that’s okay?”

A surprised yet for some reason pleased look crosses over Krem’s features before he replies, “Sure. I’ve actually been meaning to talk to you as well. There’s a small place out back that’ll work.” He stands and offers me a hand up, which I accept but then to my confusion, he juts his elbow towards me and asks, “May I?”

It takes me a second, but I abruptly remember seeing this Shem custom in Orlei (“Orlais”). Hoping desperately that I don’t do the wrong thing and mortally offend somebody, I slip my hand into the space between his arm and his torso, and I grasp his bicep. It’s at this moment that two things occur: First, the rest of the Chargers have noticed we’re leaving and have begun unabashedly watching us like Bull, who’s been doing so this whole time. Second, I realize that apparently Krem normally wears baggy plainclothes because I didn’t realize how muscular he is.

You know, it’s really unfair that I have such pale skin because it makes it really, really obvious when I’m blushing.

If Krem’s aware either of Bull’s and the Chargers’ scrutiny or of how turned on I am by his muscles, then he doesn’t show it at all as he calmly leads us out of the tavern before taking a sharp left, doubling back around the side of the building to a nook between it and the walls of Skyhold. Ever the traitor, my mind begins to play back some of my fantasies featuring Bull and me, swapping Bull out for Krem, and Creators help me, I’m liking it.

After an eternity (Or a few seconds, whatever; it’s all the same at the moment.), we reach the nook, and though I expected Krem to take back his arm, he doesn’t. Instead, he simply turns his head to face me and with a smooth, dashing grin, says, “So you had something you wanted to say?”

Oh you’ve got to… I just referred to his _grin_ as _dashing_. This isn’t _fair_! Surely it’s against the rules to suddenly flip the tables on me like this? I was not prepared for this!

“Hamasha? You still with me?” he says with a light laugh, unintentionally reminding me that, fair or not, this is still happening.

“I, a-ah…” I stutter, my eyes looking anywhere but directly at him. I can only hope that the colored light of the setting sun is at least _partially_ obscuring the redness of my cheeks. “I-I’ve been meaning to tell you that I’m sorry about singling you out back at Haven.”

“It’s fine,” he replies without hesitation, putting me a bit at ease. “I mean, it was pretty obvious that you didn’t do it maliciously.”

“T-thanks. And thank you for, ah… Well, it’s nice to know I’m not alone.”

Krem suddenly twists around so he’s standing in front of me and further into the nook, and he tilts my chin up with one of his calloused fingers so I’m looking up into his honey brown eyes. With a smile, he says, “You don’t need to thank me for that, but I know what you mean.” Letting his finger slip away, he continues, “In fact, that’s kind of related to what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Y-yeah?” I reply, unable to look away from his eyes now.

“So you know, I had _wanted_ to tell you this before everything that happened our last night in Haven, but you were usually off saving the world.” He lightly grins at that, making the fluttering feeling in my stomach double its pace. “Point is, I think you’re a beautiful lady, and I’ve really liked your personality from the few chances we’ve had to be around each other. I know you’ve got a full plate leading the Inquisition, but if you’d like to, I would love to spend more time together.”

It takes me a few seconds to regain control of my suddenly frozen body, but when I do, my lips curl up into quite possibly the biggest smile I’ve ever given. “I’d love to, Krem.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... My apologies about the delay. I will sincerely do my best to make updates a lot more often than every half a year in the future.


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